you justify my reasons to hate (...to hate!)

GUILT - BARDSTOWN UGLY BOX

The idea of a record 'dating' is an interesting one. Like it sounds so particularly like the time it was made, and in that context it's fucking cool but outside of that you can't really listen to it because, you know, it's so 2003 dude.

Refused's shape of punk to come got me with that. I got into the band not very long after that record came out and it seemed like there was nothing else like it. I bought the whole 'this is a whole new stage of hardcore' hype. I got the 'reinventing' thing. Fuck that. I listened to that record a few months ago for the first time in six years or so and yeah, wow...record has not aged well AT ALL.

So what makes records not age well? It's partly the sound being a time-specific thing, like at the time that shit was considered legit, or worth releasing or not embarassing to play in front of yr friends. And it's partly what came after it, influenced by it, that makes it unpalatable. I have a friend who likes Quicksand in theory at least, like can see what they were doing and where they were coming from, but can't listen to them because they're 'proto nu metal'. Slip, well the song dine alone on rage, got me even before I'd heard Tool (who ripped them off a tonne), so, I've never had that problem even though I can totally hear that shit. Therefore, I still blast that record all the time, and when Gorilla Biscuits played here the other weekend I almost (chickened out at the last second) went up to Walter and was like 'dude when I was like, 14, Quicksand fucking CHANGED MY LIFE'.

Anyway, Guilt's bardstown ugly box is probably a record that hasn't aged well. But I fucking love it. Not because I have some kind of teenage attachment to it or anything. I actually only heard this band about a year ago. But with certain bands I often like them as much for where they're going as whether or not they actually get there, so to speak. That's I guess why I dig so much 90's stuff even though I wasn't 'there' for it until like 98, 99. There's a charming amateur quality and a sense of 'here it is, for better or worse, at least it's (sort of) honest' that I feel is lacking a little from hardcore punk today. Sure I'm totally nostalgia-fying that a lot, I know for a fact there were a lot of cynical dicks around back then, just as many as there are now, maybe more. Reading stories about the MTM fests makes me think that nothing ever changes; shit sounds exactly the same as LLDIY or whatever, both the good and bad parts, and the hilarious parts.

Guilt are definitely a case of the journey as much as the destination. This record's from '94 or '95 or something, I forget which. They'd always interested me because I remember them being cited by a few people in zines I read as a huge influence on Shotmaker, who I thought were fucking incredible. Also they were Duncan Barlowe's post-Endpoint band and that guy's always interested me. Barlowe, if you can't place the name, was the guy who famously 'resigned' from hardcore after someone from Ten Yard Fight (or Floorpunch, fuck I always mix the two up) decked him for 'talking shit'. Barlowe had protested that said dude had said 'selling out edge was one step away from taking a dick up the arse' and Duncan was like, hey, that's homophobic bullshit, fuck you.

As much as the 'resignation' was a pointless act I kind of admired the spirit of it. I also liked the way Barlowe and his long term musical compatriot, Rob Pennington, reflected a kind of ambiguity with their music that was really cool. See by the time I was getting into this shit there was a seperate thing going on, what you'd now call the hessians or whatever, all us PC kids, we were retreating to screamo or thrash or wherever the fuck and leaving 'hardcore' to the people who didn't care about the shit we did. Barlowe's bands put records out on Victory and played hardcore shows, all the way up to his last 'hardcore' band, By the Grace of God. They played within that scene and tried to bring those messages into the fold. And yeah it got caught up in the hype and styles of the time, there's lots of hilarious stories about people crying at Endpoint shows and stuff. But listening to that music, made fourteen years ago, I still get that and I fucking admire and love and respect it for all it's worth.

Bardstown Ugly Box sounds nothing like Shotmaker. I can see the influence but still. It's midpaced, chuggy post-hardcore, rock, metal, what the fuck ever. I really wanted to cover omega in Ex Spectator, so I played it to Kirk and Sean and they were like 'dude...this sounds like Grinspoon'. Yeah. Thanks to the stuff that came after it hasn't dated well. But in 1994 tuning down to drop D and playing mid paced shit was pretty next level.

Guilt were that classic case of dude in big hardcore band's next project; what Quicksand was to GB for Walter Schrieffels (sp?) or Embrace was to Minor Threat for Ian Mackaye: time to slow down and get introspective. In some ways, much like those two bands actually, it's really fucking clumsy. But like those two bands I love it because it's a group of people trying to find their way around something new and different, trying to express something else.

The record has one of the worst drum sounds I've ever heard and it has that wonderful early 90s taking itself seriously pretension: check the tracklisting below, and also the record is divided into two parts; 'man against society' and 'man against himself'. It has a fucking doctored photo of a cat in a suit and tie on the CD itself (let me remind you, this came out on Victory). It has ambiguous fugazi-ish artwork. Barlowe's vocals are pretty bad. You can't hear the bass too well and the guitars are, to borrow my friend's phrase, proto nu metal.

But it has some fucking killer moments. Listen to omega and tell me you're not fucking stoked with that chorus. Listen to the quiet breakdown in phi and lose yr shit like I do, and think about how many times those Twelve Hour Turn style chord changes have showed up in the music we listen to since. Cringe at lines like 'and as I watch you sleep, yr beauty kills me'. It's so bad it's good and it's also, at the same time, a legit-ly fucking awesome, rocking mid-paced hardcore or post hardcore or whatever record.

Guilt put out a bunch of shit including a record called further which is fucking KILLER, and I'll get around to upping eventually. The leap they made from this LP to that is unbelievable, the record wouldn't sound out of place today. But I figure it's good to start here.

Both are still in print from Victory so, you know...I don't give a shit about them actually but in principle, if you like this stuff, buy the records to add to yr collection of vinyls.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?vzm51ydyumz

Guilt - Bardstown Ugly Box (Victory Records, VR029, 1994 or 5?)

SIDE A, 'man against society'; Gamma / Omega / Chi

SIDE B, 'man against himself'; Xi / Omnicron / Theta / Phi

the dire and ever circling wolves

J-LO BIAFRA

When I left Whitehorse I was determined to do something, anything, in a simillar vein to what we'd been doing up to that point. I left because I was more into the dymanic, loud then quiet then loud, being really creepy kind of schtick that's somewhat evident (particularly on the second song with that tremolo guitar part) on the first recording. They wanted to go in the direction of producing just a more brutal, full on aural assault that Emile described as 'like being kicked in the face' that would eventually lead them to the point they are/were at with their most recent stuff; music that's a lot like watching Corrupted, while being kicked in the face. They're fucking amazing, hopefully they play again sometime next year.

But I'd discovered the world of loop pedals and shit like that during this time, and been inspired by what Grover was doing with his noise effects stuff. At the same time my mind was being completely fucking blown by music Pete had introduced me to when we started Whitehorse (Earth, Boris, particularly 'flood'), and the instrumental stuff that I'd been getting into for the last four years, part of what is now dubiously described as 'post rock' music - Mogwai, Hotel2Tango bands, etc.

So I set out with a couple of loopers and some other effects and attempted to make my own instrumental jams. I played one show under the name 'leisure like work is dead time', stolen at the last minute from the insert of Wolves' 'simulation...' LP, then changed the name to J-Lo Biafra. That shit joke would come back to haunt me. For instance at a show in adelaide I had a 40 something woman dressed up for a gallery opening wanting to talk to me about the implications of the cross-cultural juxtaposition of the name. I just thought it was funny.

Anyway it continued on for four years and would change and develop as my tastes grew. Initially starting out trying to be a cross between a doom band and Silver Mt. Zion's more quiet moments. Then I got pretty heavily into Growing around the same time as I was trying to make my guitar much more processed and not like a guitar. Then came the drum machine and the idea of big epic 'songs', and so on. I did some shitty, recorded to a boombox tapes and gave them away or sold them, and I ended up playing brisbane a couple of times, sydney a couple of times, adelaide, and a bunch of shows friends put on in melbourne, where I'd be like 'hey, if like, you need someone to open...'. It wasn't a big deal, I'd just be out with another band or a friends' band and be like 'hey can I bring my pedals along and play?'.

Biafra was always about the gear too, and the music would change and develop as I bought and sold new guitars and new pedals, tried new tunings and the like. But by the start of this year I was sick of the dumb name, and sick of the music entirely. By now all this sort of stuff had well and truly become considered 'post rock', which was defined as boring, white guy post emo with delay pedals replacing the shit lyrics. I was increasingly aware that I wasn't the only arsehole with a guitar and a looper doing this music, was definitely not the first, and would not be the last. And most people were doing it way better than me.

And I think it was ruined by too much gear. There was always too much going on in the music, then I'd watch people with much simpler setups play really basic sets that just blew what I was doing away. Also I'm not a great improviser or solo musician by any stretch of the imagination. My ideas are hugely unoriginal and I always need someone to help me build them. And I'd never practice and so being 'improvised' never helped. There were some great moments in there but probably only ever played two shows that I thought were worth anything. It got to a point where I was like 'who the fuck am I to inflict this shit on people?'. Why the hell am I playing music I think is terrible to people? Also someone compared it to Explosions in the Sky and I fucking despise that band. Good time to bail.

So, after not having played for ages, Fjorn asked me to play a thing she was organising earlier this year. I made it my 'last show', played really loud, a few people watched and dug it, that's it. I still make music by myself with my pedals and have played a couple of shows under a different name, but I'm pretty embarassed and insecure and don't think it's anything I want to do other than recorded in my bedroom for now. And honestly I just find myself so fucking disgusted with this 'post rock' thing that yeah...I didn't wanna be associated with it anymore.

Last year I'd made a recording with Pete Sheppo onto his computery stuff. Just a couple of hours in a rehearsal room, improv, built off of pre-written ideas, all done in one take. It was originally going to get a tape release but that was on a label that unsuprisingly flaked. Anna Vo asked to do some more mixing and put it out on her label, An Out, which I was kinda stoked about, but then it just got completely bogged down in me never finishing the art, never coming up with anything I liked, etc. In retrospect volunteering to do art for a project you think is unoriginal, when you also think yr art is incredibly unoriginal and boring...not a good idea. She kept ringing me about it, I kept putting it off, she went on tour with Crux and away and stuff. I listened to it again a few months ago and was like 'this shouldn't see the light of day'.

It's...I dunno, there's bits I like and there's bits that I think are terrible. The overly compressed guitar sound for one (my fault, not Pete's). The complete lack of originality for another. Most of me is thinking I should take the same attitude I did with the 'band' itself; if I didn't think it was good enough for other people to hear it, then, you know, don't put it out where other people can hear it. I should also bear that in mind with my current thing I do, Sleeping Weather, but yeah...there's a fuck of a lot of fun to be had in making that kind of noise I guess, no matter how insecure I am about it. Ego and self-indulgence win out from time to time.

So here it is, the recording I did with Pete in '07. Four songs, no names or anything like that, no mixing at all, just the signal straight from the mics to his computer. For anyone that ever came and watched, and a couple of my friends were always really enthusiastic about it, yeah...here it is if you want a copy. Thanks.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jwuyhzhxtzf

...summer's gone and summer saw you, waaaaaaa-steeeedddd

Long time no update. Nothing exciting to report, just working a fucking fuckload. I'm actually sitting here at the office after having spent about eight straight hours trying to letraset a whole tracklisting for a CD into place over some collaged backgrounds, the results were:

a) it looked like a really, really, REALLY FUCKING POOR QUALITY off of Adam Juresko from Stop It!!'s work.

b) it didn't work aesthetically or like, in terms of it being legible.

c) I fucked it up heaps

d) it sucked

so I threw eight hours of work into the shredder. Look I have to admit there's something inherently satisfying about such a little artistic temper tantrum, no matter how counter productive.

While we're talking about how I suck? Let's talk about mail, and how shitty I am with returning it. I owe people prints and mix CDs and I forget both every morning when I get to work, and usually go 'oh fuck it I'll take care of it next day' but then don't. This counsellor guy I speak to at uni seems to think this has something to do with the whole repetitive cycle nature of depression and stuff and the mind-numbing work routine that's like, a not-quite-existence state compared to when I'm out with friends and/or around music and they might be right. But I prefer to think I'm just a deadshit. Anyways like I said I was supposed to send someone a mix CD as part of a swap like...TWO MONTHS AGO OR SOMETHING. FUCK. It's actually completely slipped my mind. So, you know, I'll, uh, get on that, ASAP.

But while we're on the topic of mix CDs I decided to make one based off shit that's already uploaded onto my work computer for whatever reason. I've been listening to this a lot the last week or so, it's actually a kinda nice summer driving around mix. It's broken up into two parts.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jynyqhjgydy part une

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2tg2ivhqonj et la part deux

Schifosi – half lit world
Limpwrist – the ode
Moss Icon – kick the can
Look Back and Laugh – this cost we absorb
Please Inform the Captain this is a Hijack – the asymmetric enemy
Q and Not U – fever sleeves
The Lapse – the threat
The Nation of Ulysses – n-sub Ulysses
Twelve Hour Turn – how to build
Wrangler Brutes – unmentionables
Xiu Xiu w/M. Gira – under pressure
Young Marble Giants – brand new life
Tragedy – the ending fight
The Organ – basement band
The Van Pelt – his saxophone is my guitar
PG99 – my application to heaven
Off Minor – this is a hostage situation
Pygmylush – dreams are class
Hoover – breather resist
Frodus – 6/99
Challenger – brand loyalty
Broken Social Scene – windsurfing nation
Born Against – senderos
Blonde Redhead – loved despite great faults

Calvary – the very roots of words

WE LEFT OUR PLANETS LONG AGO

THRONES


Call me a humorless cocksucker if you want but I don't really like 'wacky' music. The whole thing reeks of circus metal, ska, and - god forbid, primus or mr bungle. Maybe it's one of those 'you had to be there' things and 'there' was being a bassplayer and going to highschool in the eastern suburbs in the 90s, I dunno. Maybe it's because, as discussed below, most of the music I enjoy I also find kind of hilarious in one way or another. Either way self-consciouly 'zany' shit generally tends to be unfunny uni funk crap, or reek of lame 'don't you like FUN' crap like doomhawk.

There are however exceptions to this: anything Joe Preston is involved with and anything Sam McPheeters is involved with. This is of course subjectivity coming into play but fuck you it's my blog and those two dudes make me laugh. A lot. I mean it's possible to combine 'humor' with 'a message' and lots of bands do that to varying degrees of success, and McPheeters does it too actually. But both of them are just completely out there on some whole kind of other level, it's not next level it's like at least 20 years into the future shit.

So the last few nights I've been pulling 14 hour shifts in front of the computer (after my usual workday) writing an essay and it's frankly driven me fucking insane. Just finishing up the final spell check and reference list now with Thrones as my soundtrack and it's somehow appropriate. Thrones is the solo project of Joe Preston, otherwise known as a guy that's played bass and guitar in a fucking TONNE of bands including the Melvins, Men's Recovery Project, High on Fire, Sunn and most recently Harvey Milk. Dude rules, and the record's still in print so I'm not upping the whole thing but here's four songs off the 'day late, dollar short' collection of comp songs and other shit on southern lord that's basically his easiest thing to find right now. It'll give you an idea of the fucking genius of this guy. A combination of the Melvins, Ween, weed, self-effeacing nerdy white guy humor, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. When I finally completely lose my mind I hope it sounds like this.

Oh and if you steal my idea for using 'oracle' as walk on music should the ocassion ever rise where I could get away with using it, I'll...eh...probably just cry about it on the internet.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?imwjkoy5tyz

Thrones 'day late, dollar short' (excerpt), Southern Lord

Reddleman / Silvery Colorado / Epicus Doomicus Bumpitus / Oracle (rush cover)

...alien landscape, doesn't seem that alien at all

This one goes out to the 'Shellac inspired' bands. Albini, Weston and Trainer didn't create the whole scrappy guitar over repetitive bass and drums played really hard with an overdose of testosterone or sexual frustation or not enough weed or ever but they seem to be the common touchstone for everyone when describing this kind of 'math rock' stuff. "You know, they sound kinda like Shellac". A disease melbourne suffered from for far too long. Or you could say they sound like Fugazi but that never takes into account that band's trademarks - the weird dynamics, pseudo funk/post punk shit, or the fact that they're fucking Fugazi, dude - and always leaves me disappointed when I go to old bar or something and see some bad that's loud and, uh, 'propulsive' or something but definitely does not sound anything like Fugazi. Actually personallyI relate this stuff back to Shotmaker a hell of a lot more because I think they really did that whole spazzy, mid-pace three piece thing best out of anyone but yeah...say "Shellac" and people are at least going to have some idea where you're coming from.

STAYNLESS

I have absolutely no information on this band. A while ago when 'zines' started calling themselves 'magazines' and getting coloured cardstock covers but well before the death before dishonours and what have yous of today there was a phase of moving up from the split 7"s you'd get with stuff like I Stand Alone or the occasional Ebullition 12" to the much easier format of compilation CDs of a whole shit-tonne of bands on different labels. Kinda like a promo CD but there'd be a bunch of stuff from a heap of different labels, together with self released things and whatever. Paying six bucks for a copy of Status or Nothing Left and getting a CD with 20 or 30 bands to listen to on it was a fucking awesome deal. I used to tape the CDs and listen to them on the way to school and back in my walkman for weeks, marking down in the tracklisting pages of the zines with a biro which ones I thought were really cool, making mixtapes of those songs and then trying to track down those records. I got introduced to a lot of that cool indie rock shit Status put out in the last few years of the 90s like early Waxwing and The Casket Lottery this way.

On one of those Status comps there was this crazy fucking song called relax and colour by this band Staynless. To me it just seemed so completely out of control. I was 16 and hadn't heard much like this, these guys sounded like they weren't even bothering to play chords on their instruments half the time, and I imagined it was because they were all going way too crazy to play, thrashing around and hitting all the open strings on their guitars because they were just losing their shit and hey when you're getting yr spazz on it's not like you can pay attention to that minor 7th inversion or whatever. But then it gets to the breakdown (the starting riff which I definitely tried to steal for an early terror firma song), the other guitar comes in with those clean arpeggios and the drums haven't lost any momentum, but now it sounds so much more refined. If I was some writer douche I'd say it was 'controlled chaos' or something, I don't know. All I knew is that it fucking blew my mind, this was heavy but not tough, out of control but not inept.

So I tried to track the record down, which for me at that time consisted of going to missing link a few times and eventually remembering that was what I was looking for and never finding it. And just forgot about it I guess. I lost that comp CD a long time ago although I could still probably hum/sing you that whole song from memory considering how many times I listened to it on my shitty walkman coming home from school, thinking that places where this kind of music happened, that was where I was going to be when I was done with all this highschool crap. (Angsty).

Couple months ago someone posted a complete discography of Staynless' stuff on VLV and I of course was like 'holy fuck! I remember them!' and downloaded it all. Have listened to it at least once a week since and even now still haven't absorbed how amazing this band was. There was a time where relax and colour by this band was track one on side two of every mixtape I made. The band actually cover a pretty huge dynamic range and that one song isn't really indicative of everything they were doing. Maybe it was because there were so many people doing something simillar at the time or maybe it's because their one full length LP, Transistor Theory and Circuits Made Simple, on Undecided Records had cover art (see above) that looks like something Alison Wolfe would've been a member of and so they missed a whole bunch of people who would've otherwise dug it but didn't like Riot Grrrl or something (suckers). I don't know. Either way this record is incredible and something I feel almost evangelical about. So many people who're into this spazzy, grinding shit that you can use dumb words like 'angular' or 'mathy' to describe would love this record.

HUGE EDIT: Thanks to Yellow Ghost Forum user 'clarky' I now have tracklisting info:

'1. Old Salt (Side A) (4:0 2. Old Salt (Side B) (3:29) 3. The Camera Shop (4:13) 4. Red Giant (4:54) 5. Haunting the Haunted House (4:11) 6. Pay What You Get For (5:42) 7. The Dead Bell (4:46) 8. Relax and Colour (2:0 9. First Law of Motion (4:24) 10. Activator (3:05) 11. Staint Christofer (5:02) 12. Rail Roads Follow Rivers (4:47)

tracks 1 and 2 are from the Old Salt 7", it was one song over 2 sides of the record tracks 3 and 4 are from the Snowfields and Sand Dunes" 7 (i think?) tracks 5-12 are the album "Transistor Theory and Circuits Made Simple" '

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?jznjojoxkwg

THE GREAT UNRAVELING - KRS LP

Tonie Joy and A.S. Malat's band after Universal Order of Armageddon. Another band that Pete Hyde got me into actually. The LP came in second hand and he was like 'hey you'd dig this', and mentioned Tonie Joy, who at that time I just knew of as 'the dude from Moss Icon and Born Against' but in the last few years has become one of my absolute favourite guitarists (even though he plays a strat...gross) so yeah. He was right.

Again on the Shellac tip, or whatever you want to call it. Actually I was listening to this once in my car and a dude who used to do that 'I pretend to know this music because it will make me cooler' for some dumb reason (seriously, who cares how esoteric yr knowledge is?) was like 'man I love this Shellac record'. Lulz. I'm sure if they were playing now in melbourne there'd be a certain amount of people willing to call them a 'My Disco ripoff', because people are silly like that. Playing from 95 to 97 they sort of took the slower, darker moments of U.O.A, and the energy, but none of the speed and short songs. They have that thing that I like to think of as the three piece effect that makes bands like Shotmaker and Frodus (and Former Republics) so fucking great: everyone's playing an instrument and often the vocals can take a back seat to that. There's no one with a microphone feeling like they need to fill in that space and so consequently the music can breath and stretch out. Which is exactly what the Great Unraveling did. I don't know how much weed was smoked in the course of this band but it definitely jams out a lot, makes a hell of a lot of use of reptition and the amelodic possibilities of Joy's noise guitars. This must've been so much fun to play.

Reading in the wikipedia article about them there's something about their last music being written in an old house in the maryland woods Joy bought, where apparently ghosts or witches would appear and sing along with a certain bassline. Again...maybe the weed. But there's definitely a creepy element to this music. Not as creepy as say Slint's last record but definitely creepy in terms of lots of space and just an overal general feel of dark rooms, grey skies and solitary afternoons in this music. So naturally I love it.

The Great Unraveling - s/t LP, Kill Rock Stars.

I can't be fucked writing up the tracklisting and catalog number because usually I'm doing this at work and don't have my LPs handy to check. Also I ripped this one off a CD that might be a little scratched, sorry. Tracklist for this will be in the file. Has a song, 'head for the hills', that's not on the LP as I recall. I think I gave my LP copy to fellow Tonie Joy enthusiast Alex or something so I can't remember.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?grqvytntjmy

...by the fireplace, in white.

pg.99 - 'document #5'.

When it comes to $kramz stuff I think the stuff that's definitely going to stand the test of time for me is all the harsher, more fuck-off noisy stuff. Like Reversal Of Man, Orchid's last record, etc etc. I mean there's lots of great stuff still being done, like in any genre but personally I got lost when it became this 'screamo' thing instead of just another version of hardcore, a reaction against everything else and a way to make music that isn't polished and commidifed and stale.

Page Ninety-Nine I'll always love. Even if they didn't have like the great lyrics of other bands (some is cool, some is, uh, you know...), they just fucking ruled. They were as messy as a band with multiple singers and guitarists and bassists - famously at one point they had 14 members - would expect to be and completely unafraid of reaching outside any perceived limits of their music. And all "DIY" whatever that means and all that shit. I don't know, there's a lot of bullshit romanticism to it but they put out some great records, and a lot of great bands came out of this band (personal faves: Haram, Pygmy Lush and Malady), and something about the whole just fucking going for it, just not caring about the limitations and fucking doing it and making music that is personal and inspiring really struck me. "Love yr friends, die laughing".

Anyway Document #5 isn't actually my favourite record of theirs. I feel like whereas with this record there's like the screamo bits and the metalcore bits and whatever, on later stuff like Document #8 it got a lot more seamless. Also that record seems so unbelievably pissed and defiant about "punk rock in the wrong hands". But this one is still great and has two of their best songs. The end riff of 'by the fireplace, in white' is killer and apparently live could go on forever, which is something I definitely wish I saw. And then there's the song 'my application to heaven'. Seriously. If you haven't heard it I'll let you hear it, but it's so bone headed yet also in the context of the lyrics heartfelt and just so fucking awesome.

I was listening to the radio the other day and hearing about the church threatening to pull out of the hospitals it owns/funds if Doctors were forced to comply with laws that enabled women greater access to abortion technologies. I was hearing that and just going 'I can't believe you can be a fucking chrisso and into hardcore'. I just don't fathom it. Yeah there's the personal belief thing and that's great and all and do what you want there, that's totally cool. I have my own spirituality as well. But this fucking using economic discursive power to fuck with people and try and subvert their freedoms? That's no different than any other piece of shit corporate entity using their economic resources to fuck humans over. It's just hidden behind a belief system. And so yeah I decided rather than do anything meaningful I decided to post this record. Fuck you jesus indeed.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ninyd2zzjru

PG. 99 - 'document # 5'

Ruiner of Life / Comedy of Christ / Skin Pack / My Application to Heaven / Hotel Nevada 1982 / Humans With Forked Tongues / Murder, Conductor / (.................) / Sounds of Gravesites (upturned) / By The Fireplace, In White.

...faded, grey, like smoke

BREATHING WALKER

I was listening to the Boris w/Michio Kuwihara record 'rainbow' on the way to work and reflecting how really, this was blatant hippie shit and why am I tolerating it? Then I realised I was wearing my tie dye Occult Blood shirt and basically shit was all over and I had to pull over to the side of the road to give myself a good sound punching.

But there's been an acceptance of elements of psychedelia into my music listening over the past five years. Not just in a 'hey this is fucking hilarious' way with like Ghost or something, but a genuine enjoyment of fucking out there whacko psyche rock shit. This has not been concurrent with my resumption of smoking the weedian nazareth either, happened when I was still straightedge.

See the thing is I actually enjoy a lot of music that I find at the same time absolutely fucking hilarious. Sleep's 'dopesmoker' is one of my favourite driving records, and I love the shit out of the post Sleep band Om. But seriously. Have you read the lyrics? It's all like HIGH PRIESTS ASCEND THE TEMPLE ZIGURATT STAIIIRRRSSS TO GIVE OFFERING TO WEEEEEDDDD GODDDDSSSSS. Fucking funny shit. And the cover art's like some Arik Roper painting of like barbarian chicks with huge swords and druids and stuff and like...how the fuck can you not find this utterly hilarious? Maybe my whole life is utterly consumed by irony and I'm like that dude in the homerpalooza episode of the Simpsons whom, when asked if he was being sarcastic, replies with dejected confusion: "I don't even know anymore dude".

Moss Icon were dismissed by many of their detractors as 'punk rock's answer to the grateful dead'. I'll back that. And I fucking HATE hippies man. I fucking despise them and every other non-funny-but-just-plain-annoying aspect of weed culture (ie pretty much anything you can buy from Off Ya Tree, mirrors with shit like the 'ten commandments of the native american' screened onto them that you bought from the Carribean market, and also I'll put Mr. Bungle in there. Drawing a long bow? What, like, bow and arrow, like living a natural primal existance? Fuck you hippie!).

Umm where was I? So yeah I can see what bummed people out about Moss Icon but for me they were always somewhere in the free-expressive side of 'emo' music or whatever where you basically, just let it all hang the fuck out. I used to refer to it when I was younger as like the whole 'talking song' idea, the repetitive basslines, arpegiated clean guitar, repetitive, half ad-libbed vocals, all reaching some kind of crescendo. Part of what attracted me so much about Hoover like I probably mentioned in my post about them. Moss Icon nailed that with the song 'lyburnum wit's end liberation fly'. It was a pretty inspiring piece of music, as a guy who plays in bands and seeks to express a lot of himself through that as well. To be able to just let go and say what was on my mind is - while being the height of self-indulgence - pretty fucking great.

And through on to bands like Indian Summer, whom I find it harder to enjoy now but their live record is still a pretty phenomenal listen, there's a tradition there of wearing yr heart on yr sleeve or baring yr sould through music that was specifically about that place and that moment that you were performing it and none other. And what was on yr mind at that time would come out through it. This I honestly just seem to connect with more and therefore have in the past judged it as more 'sincere' than the usual boy loves girl, fucks it up, writes a bunch of songs blaming her for it all while she doesn't get to answer back 'emo' stuff. Whether that's valid or not is another story.

Breathing Walker is Moss Icon plus some other people with the 'hippie' stuff amped up a zillion times higher. It's very much built around the same repetitive musical figures but there's extra instrumentation and the guitars themselves seem inclined to be more about texture and sound than playing the actual notes. And it's a pretty wonderfully naive and fun way. I used to sit with my bass and my crappy little practice amp and play two notes over and over again, marvelling at the way the sound dispersed, the overtones that would come in as others decayed, the vibrations that would change as you contrasted one note to another. Nowadays if I want to create texture and experiment with sound I'll automatically get like five delay pedals out or something, I think my brain has been ruined by music theory knowledge and I've become dependant on toys. I miss that ability to just create a simple noise and make it into a song, which Tonie Joy does so fucking well on the first song on this recording, 'Elephant'.

The wikipedia entry on this record describes it as "Moss Icon with a more tribal feel", which means, I don't know, more hand drums or something? Fuck that's really questionable territory but this record is musically evocative (to a western ear) of the South American cultures singer Jonathan Vance was definitely interested with. But I think they manage to be evocative without actually committing plagiarism. I don't know hey, it's just a weird ground where something like this works for me but something like Paul Simon's 'graceland' kind of reeks of post-colonial dilletantes exploiting cultural product. Vance's lyrics as always have a 'political omg' aspect to them as well. Many of his songs dealt with capitalist intervention in third world countries and native cultures. And the subtly of it, of a song talking about the Elephant, and Vance just branching off on that subject and going wherever the hell he wants, incorporating through some kind of freeform rant ideas of hegemonic intervention, environmental destruction and our own disempowerment in privileged societies is to me as powerful as a more 'direct' approach that sets out the problem in facts and figures and names and places.

Anyway it's Breathing Walker and it is what it is. A kind of naieve experiment of the early 90s where shit like this could be tried because there wasn't some godawful abomination of a band to compare it to and ruin it all. Sort of like I'd love to do a band that sounds like Quicksand or Guilt now but there's too much nu metal in between now and then to make it work. Two songs specific to them, two re-done Moss Icon songs (including my least favourite, 'moss'...fuck that guitar riff, seriously) and a couple of live songs that gives you even more of an idea of the improvisational nature of Vance's approach to being a singer in a punk band.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?hjlmjobolwb

Breathing Walker - s/t (Vermin Scum, cassette 1990, LP, 2001)

Elephant /All Over Heaven / Guatemala / Moth / Demon / (live) / Guatemala (live)

first world problems

Come to this if you want.

You know what pisses me off at the moment? People who think they're yr friends and therefore have like, the liberty to say shit to you that yr real friends do, because we're part of some imagined punk rock community. I feel like such a jerk saying this too but fuck it's annoying. If hear inane comments about the fact that OMG I HAVE A BEARD from one more person I've never even fucking met in real life I'll write a self centered complainy little blog about it...oh, yeah...


Anyway we'll return to our regular updates once life and uni has stopped being such a big bunch of dick.

shameless self promotion

expect potaters songs up on our myspace. http://www.myspace.com/exspectatorband

on being a close-minded bastard...

FUEL - MONUMENTS TO EXCESS

It wasn't like I used to hate pop punk, per se. I was just ambivalent about it for the most part. With the arrogance of the 16 year old who told all the kids who discovered Tool when stinkfist made it into the triple j hottest 100 that year to 'listen to Quicksand man, they totally did it first', I considered it immature or something fucking re re like that. Starter music, before you got into the more sophisticated 'hardcore' and 'emo' indie rock stuff I was reading about in well thumbed copies of status, nothing left and second nature, and listening to over and over again on tapes warped by the shitty rewinding function on my two dollar shop walkman.

And bands I used to go see and fucking love, like that one brief shining period where Bodyjar had like four good songs, and Caustic Soda, and the almighty One Inch Punch? Fuck off, they were something better. In my outer eastern suburban arrogance and ignorance I was the only one (well certainly the only one in my high school, that I knew of or cared about anyway) that knew about them. They were mine, secret, and therefore much more credible.

Then I heard the MXPX song 'chick magnet' and my condescending ambivalence about pop punk turned to utter, furious hatred. What the fuck WAS this bullshit? Some stupid walking bass part that's one of the first things you learn in the cheesy bass lines to piss off yr parents 101 book, and a horrible guitar sound and the guy could actually sing?! What a bunch of shit! And suddenly the people who beat me up with metal fence stakes for displaying such obvious signs of homosexuality as 'not liking football' and 'not drinking' were into this music?!! And it was all down hill from there. Bands like The Ataris, Saves The Day and New Found Glory make me want to vomit in rage. (Sorry Cam, but they do). I'm sure there's a lot to appeal to people who're into it but there's nothing punk rock about it to me. It's all so fucking clean, and produced, and fucking boring. It was (and is although I don't really care about it anymore) the antithesis of punk rock to me. Punk was about avoiding being slick and eaily digestible. If you were going to write pop songs, I reasoned, you could do them all lo fi and cool. If you were going to play fast upbeat shit, you could do it like Lifetime and cool. Fuck this clean, pretty, striving to be pure, often chrisso stuff. I was on some next level Winston Smith shit dude; I HATED purity and prettyness in music. Punk was the life-saving refuge for social outcasts and this crap seemed to associated with everything that was boring and conservative and therefore oppressive and alienating.

Fast forward a couple of years and not much has changed. Hell in 2008, right now, not much has changed. I don't actively wish for bands like that's deaths anymore but I do dismiss them as utterly irrelevant to what I'm doing and/or music for people that would've beat me up in highschool. And If you like that music, I'm totally not dissing you or yr taste or saying you can't be into this stuff and the ebullition back catalogue as well. 26 is far too old to be 'judging' people based on what music is important to them or saying their experiences aren't just as valid for them as mine are for me. I'm just detailing my own complicated relationship with the music that's a disturbingly large part of my life. For better or worse I was totally all about aesthetics.

To some degree I still am but Fuel's monuments to excess was part of the step in turning me around. This record is pop punk as all fuck. Seriously, holy shit. Fuel was one of my more later experiences of the genius of Mike Kirsch. I got into Bread and Circuits, whom seriously changed my life, then Navio Forge, then Torches to Rome, then Fuel. I'd always read about them as the band that all the older kids said Hot Water Music was ripping off. Hot Water Music's forever and counting was the soundtrack to the years 18/19 for me, as not only was I dealing with all the being an adult shit but coming to realise that something seriously wasn't right in my head. I got a HWM fire/water thing as my first and so far only tattoo. A band that inspired (though they deny it) them? Fuck yeah, sign me up!

Fuel - whom if you were wondering, aren't the band post-grunge radio rawk band that produced that song shimmer or any of that crap - were a bay area punk rock band in the early 90s, apparently inspired by Fugazi/DC but coming from the same scene that produced Green Day, Crimpshrine and Aaron Cometbus, and distinctly filtered with that kind of vibe. So when I first put this record on and listened to the palm muted guitar chords of disengaged I was like 'okaaay...this is cool. Wait what the hell is up with these vocals?! Oh man this is...well they're yelling sort of out of tune and shit and that's cool but this is way less 'emo' than I expected'. Next song, 2:52 (instrumental), a, just that, instrumental. 'Oh god listen to those guitar leads, this song is so happy! I mean it's kinda wonderfully amateurish in the way it sort of goes out of time and stuff but shit...I can imagine people doing mad pop punk jumps to this!'. I was conflicted.

By the last song on the first side, cue to you, was perhaps more what I expected. Pop punk still, but in the way that trying to write songs to sound like first two eps Fugazi always ends up sounding like pop punk. And that cool two note harmonic lead thing? That rules. Vintage Kirsch. Wait, what's going on here? Change in the middle of the song? OH SHIT! The song burst into an amazing fast part, complete with out of tune backing vocals and raging lead and holy shit I'm literally up off my chair in shock. That was, to that date, one of the coolest things I'd ever heard in a song. This was worth flipping the LP and catching the second side. First song on side B? The name is.

One of the things I've hated - since I went from stupid kid who didn't care to jerk who alienated all his highschool friends with his politics to whoever I am now - and don't think I'll ever come to accept from people is people saying (unironically, or without the 'it's either laugh at it or I'll cry' un-pcness of most 'pc' people) 'gay' to mean shit's bad, or calling someone a homo or whatever. I just fucking hate it, even if you say 'ghey', or go like 'but it used to mean 'happy', the meaning's just changed again'. It's like, no, that's not the fucking point, the meaning has changed because 'gay' is socially constructed as bad; and so therefore the meaning still comes from hate. I tried to articulate that in songs so many times and it never came out. And then I'm listening to this song called the name is about racist or homophobic jokes, asking "where do you find the humor in that? I've got a name for that. The name is 'hatred'", and suddenly this record fucking made sense. Not only did it do that but it gripped me by the heart and gut and mind the way other later Kirsch bands already had and made me think, and feel so amazed and so fucking empowered and energised by music that was fucking saying something that I identified with. And I was getting those feelings, that shortness of breath and 'holy shit I could stay up all night listening to this' excitement from a band that was fucking pop punk?

And that's the moment I realised my stupid attitude had probably cut me off from some incredible music that was just as powerful, innovative and moving as my the musical palette that I thought was more 'grown up'.

The thing I love about a lot of good hardcore punk music, particularly in the 90s but just in general, is really how amateurish it is. Listen to why can't you see. They're fucking rapping in that song dude! But fuck in 1990 in that scene if you had this kinda white boy funk meets Fugazi thing going on in a song and a lot of words to say, why the fuck not do it? Rap meeting guitar music and honkys hadn't turned into stupid faces and MiZPeLLed BaNd NAymez yet so there was no warning sign on that road. And if the thing you were trying to say was so simple, if yr politics were charmingly naieve and all like 'look, I mean, come on, this is just plain common sense, be nice to each other people' well what the fuck is wrong with that?

I've always loved bands - ie Milemarker - where I can see the aesthetic, the thing that they're going for, so fucking clearly that I don't care if they don't quite get there and honestly they suck a little bit (ie Milemarker). Fuel is kinda like that for me. It's not 'sophisticated' and it doesn't fucking have to be. If you wear yr heart on yr sleeve genuinely, then outside of that moment you are going to come across as very dorky. But if you're true about it, you don't care. This record is fucking dorky and so fucking cool. When HWM came along a few years later building on the two guitars / two vocals and a simple positive message punk rock thing, I can now see why they had the impact they did. It was like the promise of bands like Fuel and the things they hinted at coming together just that bit more. And every time I feel really bummed out on music great 'honest', whatever that means, bands like this make me realise that it is truly the greatest thing that I've been able to experience.

I actually sold my LP copy of this earlier this year. At the time I didn't have a working record player, and instead had a massive bass amp repair bill to try and cover. And for some reason (probably the no turntable amp bit) I was going through this phase of getting everything I had on vinyl on CD. I mean I mostly listened to music in the car anyway, right? DUMB. But as soon as I got my cash for the LP, I walked over to the second hand CD section and got the copy of the Fuel discography CD (on broken rekkids and I think out of print) that was sitting in there. I wasn't going to walk out of that store leaving that LP without taking those songs home in another format.

Hype it up much? Don't care, it's late and I'm a little blazed. And I've listened to this record three times in a row, and I know when I go to bed I'll feel all lonely and shitty like I always do, and when I get up and go to work tomorrow I'll feel fucking stressed about all the files on my desk and the uni papers waiting for me back here at home. But I'll always have records like 'monuments to excess' to put on and just go 'fuck yeah...dude...fuck yeah...'.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f0af379cc9071c94ab1eab3e9fa335ca68550b2a285fa1aa

Fuel - 'monuments to excess', ebullition no. 23 (originally released as s/t on cargo), 1990.

SIDE A - disengage / 2:52 / some gods / remains to be seen / cue to you

SIDE B - name is / why can't you see / actualized / habit / not up for sale

what you might want, they'll take it awwaaaayyyyy...'

HOOVER - 'THE LURID TRAVERSAL OF RTE. 7'

There are certain bands that I would, if I were so inclined and not perpetually unable to save money, get tattoos related to or pay more than the original price for shirts thereof. These are the bands that are just so ingrained as awesome in my head that like, it's just an unquestioning fact. A pillar of my own existance. The sky is blue and this band fucking ruled. If you asked me to name these bands I'd probably give you a list after some careful consideration, and perhaps discussion of the way Hot Water Music completely sucked arse after 'no division'. If you forced me to name some bands off the top of my head you'd get exactly four. Mike Kirsch played in three of them. The fourth is Hoover.

I first heard Hoover when I was given a mixtape in 1997. The song was electrolux and I was like 'wtf is this band give me more please'. I got a tape back with Hoover's lurid traversal of rte. 7 on one side and Harvest's living with a god complex on the other. My music taste being slanted towards dumb tough hardcore as it was back then (and still is, yeah, you got me) I listened the shit out of the Harvest side and really only gave the Hoover one a couple of spins. I mean it was like, yeah, I liked it and all but fucking Harvest man! Then I lost it approximately four weeks later anyway. Somewhere 'neath the rotting floorboards, in the rat infested underworld that lies below the year 10 lockers at vermont high there's a killer tape waiting for someone to find it.

(If someone wants to burn or link me a copy of living with a god complex I'll be forever in their debt too).

So 97 to '08 pretty much my sole experience of Hoover - apart from remembering that this record was pretty great when I heard it - was the song breather resist on the all the presidents men compilation LP that old glory records put out. And that song, the 'demo version', actually apparently recorded as part of a live radio set (which I just recently found out Briohazard's brother probably recorded, which is pretty weird in a small word kind of way), is pretty much THE BEST FUCKING SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD EVER MAAANG. They actuall re-recorded it for an odds and ends EP they did following their first reunion in '97 and I've never listened to that version. The shitty production on the original is just too perfect. I remember sitting outside some shitty nightclub in adelaide, talking to a guy who played in one of those three Mike Kirsch bands, about music, about how awesome Hoover were, and about that recording, and he said 'that's the way that song was meant to sound'. Indeed. The poor, bass heavy audio quality, dubious mix, the way the slide guitar comes in out of nowhere and destroys the clean guitar, the almost non audible vocals and the quiet droning of some recording of a preacher talking in the background are like some cosmic, planets aligning, next level mystical shit dude.

Thanks in large part to that song I had an idea in my head of what Hoover sounded like. Like I was talking in the previous post of the idea of a bands sound rather than the actual sound. Hoover was quiet/loud/quiet, perfect for the crackling of wax on the turntable and somehow linked in my head with dark rooms and out of focus powerlines. Maybe I'm autistic and relate to music in terms of visual cliches. But over the past nearly a decade Hoover have been present in my subconscious mostly as the band that wrote breather resist, that had that particular sound and feel, that I didn't even own any records of but it was such a definite fact, I almost didn't need to own the records. It was something so buried in the back of yr head that you just know it's the truth: Hoover were an amazing band.

So chucking on lurid traversal... after finally entering the digital age a couple of months ago and downloading the bastard, I was a little suprised about the first song being so upbeat and spazzy. But by track 3, electrolux, the stop/start fuzz bass awakened memories of lying on my floor listening to this record on sunday afternoons, with the blinds drawn and electric fan dimed to combat the stupid heat of summer, and wondering how the hell such amazing music could exist. How could bands be this tight, this dynamic, and create such an incredible, powerful sound? How could music groove and yet not be shitty university funk? How could these guys take what Fugazi did and build on it when all my 16 year old's attempts to do the same sounded like ska? This was punk rock yet it was so fucking different to all the punk I knew. This was subtle, beautiful music, yet in no-way streamlined or watered down.

Electrolux is a pretty good example of the amazingness of this record. Listen to that shit and then consider that this music was made in 92/93, only two years after repeater came out. Listen to that fucking bass distortion and wonder how the hell they nailed that amazing fuzz sound when everything I've heard resembling 'fuzz bass' on records for the next 15 years has never come close. The song shows the DC/Fugazi influence pretty well actually. The bass part is all kind of evil and dark sounding, somewhat chromatically neutral. Then a definite major key octave guitar part comes in over the top, doubled on both guitars. Something that doesn't quite make harmonic sense but sounds so fucking cool, and a definite trick of repeater/steady diet of nothing era Fugazi guitar playing. Something I also totally hear in Alex's playing in Former Republics which definitely makes them rule harder.

But the definite stand out of the LP for me is the song letter. This is second only to breather resist in defining the sound that occupies the niche in my head marked 'file under Hoover and influenced bands'. Hell this shit didn't start with them, and in terms of guys talking over a guitar building up over a repeating bass line it goes back as far as Moss Icon at least. But these guys on this record got it nailed so tight. It's like, I dunno, math rock or post hardcore or something. It's music I relate to as buildup music. Repetitiveness, heaps of space, guitars that come in and out. Sudden stops and complete crazy freak outs all of a sudden. Hell Slint got there first anyway. But (admittedly great) bands enjoying a posthumous revival like Indian Summer, or random moments of sudden awesome like that 'blue skies, arrival...' clean song on the State Secedes record definitely owe some small debt to lurid traversal of rte. 7. Hoover didn't invent it but they set the bar pretty fucking high pretty early on.

Unfortunately maybe these guys listen to their own well deserved praise too much. Hoover reunited in 1997, and again in 2004 where they apparently kinda sucked, and are playing shows again with a reunited Bluetip this year. I would probably no shit cry if I heard cuts like drugs, letter, electrolux or breather resist live, but some things really are best left in the past. Hoover's music has been with me now for a good chunk of my life and is so inextricably linked to the certain experiences, sensations and memories that all great music that you grow with should provoke in you, that I just don't know man...In those live songs and this LP, Hoover achieved perfection. There's no need to recreate it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f0af379cc9071c94ab1eab3e9fa335ca6ee6b9a543ec1ed5

Hoover - 'the lurid traversal of rte. 7', dischord records no. 89, 1994/5(ish?)

nb I've never owned this LP, and never had a copy of the correct tracklisting so I'm assuming this is all cool. Also this might be in print from Dischord still? If you like it, fucking buy it.

Distant / Pretender / Electrolux / Shut / Route 7 / Regulator Watts / Father / Cable / Letter / Cuts Like Drugs / Return / Private / Drive

this shit is so 2003 dude...

CALVARY - 'OUTNUMBERED IS OUTFLANKED'

So after Mr Hyde and the Jeckyls called it quits the first time around (much to everyone's relief), no sooner was Ross on a plane back to ol' blighty than we were talking about doing another band. Now bear this in mind, like so many other atrocities undertaken in those heady days, it has to be understood in a specific context; IT WAS ANOTHER TIME: 2003. 'Sassy' was in and bands like the Red Light Sting were more than just a dust covered relic of the dollar bin. 'Dance punk' was not only 'in' but somehow considered viable and interesting. Oh the embarassing naivete of youth!

But yeah Dave, Pete and myself decided to embark on a mission to create music in a simillar vein to what Mr Hyde was doing, i.e low-brow and fun as fuck to drunkenly dance to. The soundtrack for a summer spent sweating on wooden benches at 101 while yr dinner from across the road at Feast On slowly congealed into a solid mass that would painfully induce colon blockage the next day. Or drunkenly kicking out cieling tiles at the Green Room while bar manager Al egged you on. Or sitting upstairs at Soak not watching any of the bands you paid to see because you couldn't be arsed going down into that dank as shit basement. 2003 alright. We'll all deny it but we were going for something totes cutting edge for that time, punk meets disco. Hell Pete was probably going for something more like that first Black Eyes LP but I do remember a drunken conversation (at Goo no less, 2003, lol, etc) about starting a 'banging house' band. Lewis from music swop shop joined on guitar. We were called Jam Clawed Vin Duude. We played one show with Black Level Embassy in Soak's basement, then it died in the arse. Perhaps for the better. I still remember some of the basslines for that band and they wouldn't sound out of place on the Rapture's echoes. Hah remember when everyone said that album was amazing, power ballads and all (2003, lol, etc)?

Point is I got introduced to some amazing music in this time. Some of my fondest memories of 03/04 revolve around sitting in the tiny living room of Hyde's old place off Lygon street, LPs strewn across the floor as he introduced me to amazing band after amazing band. In a situation that's probably going to show up on this blog fairly often, Pete and I were doing a band, and he showed me like a zillion records in an attempt to point my music writing in a good direction. Hydro is one of the people that has influenced my music taste the most over the years and I've always been enriched for the experience.

Apart from the first Black Eyes LP, the other record that really jumped out at me over those evenings in Hyde's living room (probably following dinner at vege orgasm, 2003, lol, etc) is Calvary's outnumbered is outflanked.

At the time we were all talking about starting dance punk bands without trying to actually say the words 'dance punk', or mention Disco beats, or DFA bands, or anything like that. So vague ideas and throwbacks to post punk got tipped a lot, like Gang of Four and Wire. Look back on it now and all the Gang of Four 'influenced' bands sound more like an idea of what a Gang of Four song would sound like than anything they might've actually released. So when I was mumbling something about 'you know, Gang of Four, Wire...' to Pete he promptly turned around and put this record on. The drumming, he said, reminded him of Wire. The record wasn't what I was expecting. Instead of 12 variations on the theme of 'damaged goods', I got this blast of mid 80s dischord style melodic hardcore. No shit, this sounded like a teenage Guy Piccioto singing, over music that I would've sworn (except for the fidelity) was recorded at inner ear.

Calvary took the best parts of that 80s revolution summer sound, compressed it all down, and absolutely nailed it. The Wire comparison is actually pretty apt. The drumming is kinda stilted, mechanical and jerky, whether that's a deliberate undertaking in an attempt to evoke the 'anti-rockist' spirit of post punk bands that rejected the idea of a 'feel', or whether it's simply because the dude couldn't play very well, I don't know. The thin bass and guitar tones owe a lot to early 80s post punk recordings as well. The\discordant open string blasts sound like something off Television's first record, rather than the gibson guitars into marshall amps band they really were.

Yet there isn't a single disco beat or reference to dancing on either side of this LP. Those mid 80s DC bands were influenced a crap tonne by english post punk (listen to Embrace and try and tell me that's not true), and Calvary were like the next step on from that. If you drew a line through pink flag and end on end, then took it all the way through the 90s, outnumbered is outflanked would be at the end of it, alongside records by contemporaries like the Shivering and descendants like Bullets In. (But both those bands' shit is still in print so I'm not uploading it).

The band did feature Matt Weeks (Current, Dearborn SS, council records, etc) and you can read about the band history on the council site, http://www.councilrecords.com/ I'm not really gonna bother with those details on this blog. Rather I'm gonna self-centeredly talk about what these records mean to me, because you know they're records that uh, mean something to me. Yeah.

I think this was the first record I bought from the new Missing Link premises, which is a bit of pointless trivia for you. And I can say that from that day to this I reckon I've listened to this once a week. Hype can't ever ruin this record for me, it's perfect. Like I said, they nailed it. I mentioned above the 'idea' of what a song sounds like, like if you had to describe a band's sound without mentioning specifics, or if you wanted to write a song that sounds like something they could've written? The guitar break in order no. 270 IS what Rites of Spring sound like to me. The instrument sounds on this record are incredible, and this record was the first step in me learning a 'less gain is more' approach to guitar tone. Listen to how fucking heavy according to these visions and dreams gets when the whole band plays in unison, even though their guitars are far from saturated with distortion. 'Less is more' is pretty apt for this whole record really. While other rocking, melodic hardcore bands might have a whole shitload going on, or rely a lot on guitar effects and tricks, this is all pretty straight up. Listen to the start and end of gala affair and relise that shit's done with a delay pedal and two guitars, nothing else. Even shit that the desperately wanting to be trendy kid that I was at the time would've automatically said 'what the fuck? fuck you, no way!' and dismissed as completely dorky, like fucking surf guitar, makes this record. The arpeggios in it's sport and melody through the very roots of words are fucking rad, some of my favourite moments on the whole record.

Lyrically the record takes a lot from the Rites of Spring side of things rather than say Embrace. More for want of than no more pain. It's kinda vague, kinda maybe cryptic. And that's served this record well for me because I find lines still jumping out at me five years after I got this thing and suddenly clicking and making sense.

As I said above, I can't destroy this record with hype, it's definitely a huge influence on me. It's influenced the way I play guitar a tonne in the last few years. Ex Spectator have a song that goes down on our setlist as 'calvary'. So many other bands that before I saw as seperate things, outside of influence and a little bit impenetrable, suddenly made sense to me. The connection between post punk and emo hardcore made sense to me and opened up a lot of older music, made me more receptive to shit that previously I'd dismissed as disco beat crap for hipsters.

Calvary also put out a 7", the will of the way, and a demo. Some stuff is downloadable from the council site and the 7" is still in print and worth yr eight bucks. Many people actually consider that their best record and while it's technically more competent I guess, nothing tops this LP for me. Some records, many of the ones that I'll write about on this blog, absolutely define a time and place and a part of my life when I listen to them. But outnumbered is outflanked is kinda timeless for me. Sure it's located in that living room of Hyde's where I got introduced to this record, but I flip this so often to this very day and it still remains fresh. I was just blasting this on the way home from work a few hours ago, yelling and gesticulating at other drivers; "it only LOOKS as if it hurts, but that's exactly WHAT I WANT!".

Enjoy.

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f0af379cc9071c94ab1eab3e9fa335ca4a95a31e341f277f

Calvary - 'outnumbered is outflanked', council records no. 20, 2002.

SIDE A - order no 270 / reluctance - insertion - regret / writhe / according to these visions and dreams / heart murmur / gala affair

SIDE B - 111 (outnumbered is outflanked) / it's sport / revenant / torrential / worth a thousand dark words / the very roots of words