Monday, December 14, 2009


STICKFIGURECAROUSEL






Stickfigurecarousel, from California, is in the Acme vein or strain of the Threadbare virus. Members went on to bands like Adamantium, Give Until Gone, The Roswell Project, and The Dynamic Seven.







STABYOUINTHEHEADANDEATYOURFACEOFF






Stabyouintheheadandeatyourfaceoff is a three-piece Connecticut Hardcore band.







REPUBLIC OF FREEDOM FIGHTERS





(The) Republic of Freedom Fighters was an / band from Victoria BC, Canada. They are known for their harsh and depressing lyrics. Breakwater members.






MEMORY AS PERFECTION




Laid back yet driven, the music shifts from clean, noodley and jazzy guitars to straight forward distorted rock all driven by pounding basslines. More shouting than screaming, the vocals could be likened to an angry D. Boon. The influence of SHOTMAKER can be heard at times.




MEADOWLARK




Once again a band I know bugger all about. This is a great 7".





EURICH






Eurich was an / band from South Carolina circa 1994 - 1996.






EFRA
SEEING MEANS MORE


SMM



Seeing Means More was birthed in 2002 by 5 high school kids, starting off as a more traditional band in the vein of Indian Summer, JR Ewing, and Funeral Diner. They played multiple shows around the San Francisco Bay area with such bands as Takaru, Under a Dying Sun, atriata and heart cross love. The band then later lost original bassist Eric and keyboardist Kyle, and broke up. Seeing Means More later reformed in the summer of 2003, adding a new guitarist, Henry, to the lineup. With their new guitarist and a growing passion for , Seeing Means More began writing new material that explored the boundaries of traditional fused with /. Seeing Means More has played with some great acts such as: Sailboats, Funeral Diner, Peltier Road Massacre, Arturo Gatti, Horror City, le mal du pays, Comadre, maudlin, Heavy Heavy Low Low, Eleanor, The Jonbenet, Antagony and Suffokate. Between Fall 2003 and Fall 2005, the band recorded 7 songs with Zach Ohren and Aaron Hellam of Castle Ultimate Studios in Oakland.We played our last show on July 9 2006 in Oakland with Loma Prieta and Toru Okada.

EFRA


Efra from Paso Robles near Monterey are a screamo band that sound a wee bit like maybe Raein with a turbo boost and that long snare roll is fucking excellent.





DEAR TONIGHT






Dear Tonight is a 5-piece band from Brooklyn, NY. They provide a combination of raw energy, crafted musical arrangements and radical political/personal thought. DT continues to deliver emotion and passion so visceral that it startles.The hardcore and punk music scene has become overwhelmingly plastic, stale and repetitive. Rather than being used as a space to explore and push the bounds musically and politically, it’s become just a stepping stone to TRL, arena rock and IPod commercials. Ryan, Pete, Randy, Dan and Marc of Dear Tonight are five friends who have formed a band to express their thoughts, passions, questions, and creations. The punk/hardcore scene can still be a place where folks of all ages come together and find common space to create, think, and act outside and against the hegemony of corporate rock and right-wing politics. With this goal, they continue to write great music, compelling lyrics and have fun.After touring the US and opening for boysetsfire’s farewell European tour, in early March of 2008 they announced that they would be calling it quits.






Cowboys Became Folk Heroes / Hello Space Cowboy




CBFH




Cowboys Became Folk Heroes was a screamo band originally from Lakeland, Fl. The band released a demo (also released as a split CD-R) and are now on indefinite hiatus. A discography lp is due out in 2008 comprised of all their recorded material: the demo and an unreleased track.




HSC




????????




SEEIN' RED




It must have been around 1988 when LÄRM called its quits and Paul,Olav, Jos and Menno decided to call their new band SEEIN’RED. Menno did not stay long in SEEIN’RED because he moved to Amsterdam to complete his lawstudy and another reason to quit the band was the fact that he felt that belonging to the punkscene wasn’t that much fun anymore, the scene he used to know had changed too much, for Menno it was an end to an era.After Menno had left we asked Burt to join on Bas-guitar and Jos became the singer,Olav stayed on drums and Paul on guitar. In this early line-up we recorded our very first 4 songs, including “System”, a RONDOS cover song, who ended up on the INTIFADAH compilation LP. Soon after we had recorded this stuff Jos wanted to get back on bas because he didn’t feel Comfortable as a singer/frontman. We more or less made the decision to continue as a trio: Paul guitar & vocals, Olav drums and Jos bas & vocals, and that’s what the band still is nowadays.After leaving SEEIN RED, Burt moved on and would start his own bands: PROFOUND, MANLIFTINGBANNER, COLT TURKEY & DEAD STOOL PIGEON.Jos, Paul & Olav have been playing in various punk bands together since 1979: THE SEXTONS. DISTURBERS, TOTAL CHAOZ, LÄRM & SEEIN’RED. And beside those bands Paul & Olav used to play in: PROFOUND, MANLIFTINGBANNER and COLT TURKEY.Jos did spend some weeks in PROFOUND as well and played in ORWELL NATION and KRIEGSTANZ (both bands did split up), currently he’s in a new band called STAATHAAT.Musically SEEIN’RED was more or less a counter-reaction on LÄRM. At the time we were sick and tired of just playing short and fast hardcore songs and we wanted to go in a somewhat other direction.The initial stage of SEEIN’RED was an attempt to play a different style of punk-hardcore. Influenced by bands like the MINUTEMEN, FAITH, IGNITION, FUEL, FUGAZI etc, we tried to mix those influences with our own style, and some of that can be heard on our first records. But looking back at it, we never could play this sort of music really well.It became clear to us that with our limited musical abilities we should have sticked to what we were good at. We slowly drifted back to the fast and short style of raging punk thrash. And around the same time we were fucking blown away by bands like DROP DEAD and STACK, both bands had a big impact on us. It made us realize again, that this uncompromising style of punk was more our “cup of tea” and a far better way to express our frustration, boredom, oppression and anger!It doesn’t mean that SEEIN’RED is now about “bringing back the sound of LÄRM “, we think we do sound different nowadays and musically there are different punk styles we address. In fact we are influenced by all kinds of music, because there’s more music out there than just punk and hardcore. We also listen to 60’s beat & punk, jazz, blues, hip/hop, rock’n’roll, soul, indie-stuff, folk, country …etc. It’s all stuff we listen to and therefore an influence but you probably never heard it through all the fucking noise we make. We see ourselves as a political D.I.Y. punk band. The band is our vehicle for outrage, and a way to voice our political beliefs. And although it’s Paul who writes most of the lyrics, the band agrees on the content. We are also told that our lyrics are simple/sloganistic , and o.k. our writing skills are maybe not our strongest part, but it’s not a reason for us to not speak out. In fact the ‘simplicity’ of our lyrics is some way also our strength: The power of simplicity! It makes our lyrics really direct so you cannot mistake it for bullshit!Without going over the top, it’s important for a band to take themselves serious. It’s also because we are a punk band, and good punk bands do have a social conscience. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have fun, without our sense of humor we wouldn’t have survived the past fucking 26 years as a band. In fact humor is essential and punk should be fun, but we should not promote stupidity.To some extend our lyrics are a social commentary which reflect our vision on society and the world as we experience it . This sometimes is pessimistic, and often loaded with frustration and rage, but never without hope for some sort of political and revolutionary change.SEEIN’RED is not a human juke-box, we like to explain our lyrics. We pretty much hate it when the only reaction we get at our concerts is people shouting shit like: “Shut up and play!”. We won’t shut up or become silent in order to not preach to the converted , the “preaching” between our songs is an essential part of an SEEIN RED concert .there’s a lot of things that make us angry and we’re just trying to explain where this anger is coming from and what we are about.Punk is more than music to us and we try to bring our message to the soapbox that is our community. We hope that our songs make people think and we hope that we get our point across. We’re just trying to provide a spark for something.Obviously we are 3 different people who share a lot of common ground, many goals political beliefs and aspirations, that we hope to achieve through our collective efforts.Our political roots lie in the anarchist movement. When we got into punk in 1977, we also got interested in the politics of punk : Anarchy. We became active in a local anarchist-squat & action group and with some of our best mates we made an anarcho-communist zine called ALARM 84. But after a few years we got disillusioned with the anarchist collective and drifted more towards Communism. It can’t be denied that we were taking a lot of influences from the Dutch punk band RONDOS from Rotterdam, their records, lyrics and ideas had a big influence on us, and the way how they handled things with the Red Rock collective, their label: King Kong records, their fanzine: Raket and the Red Rat comic books etc, etc was a big inspiration .Halfway the 80’s we were definitely on the red side of the political spectrum. In fact Menno, the singer of LÄRM, was a member of the Communist Party and Paul & Olav have been members of the New Communist Party. Right now none of us are members of any political party but we support a few. We learn from many revolutionaries and we idolize none.LÄRM, SEEIN RED, MANLIFTINGBANNER etc did put red politics on the Dutch punk/HC map, still we are not just a commie band. SEEIN RED are a collective of punks who may describe themselves as Communist/Socialists/Anarchist but more important than these labels is what we really think, and what bring us together. We believe that the ideas and politics you have are more important than what you call them. Anyway to us Communism stands for the struggle of the working class and oppressed people against its oppressors, it’s the future society where the means of production, the world’s environment and the intellectual and scientific knowledge of humanity will no longer be the private property of a few, but the heritage of all. Communism -the human community, the collective being, the classless society-free of racism, sexism and homophobia remains the perspective for which we fight. We are part of a struggle that goes back thousands of years. Conditions change and some of the theory and strategy of communism has also changed, but we defend the basis of that struggle and see ourselves a part of that struggle.SEEIN RED is about anti-capitalism , we believe that the capitalist system breeds most, if not all, ills in this world. The competition for markets produces devastating wars and environmental destruction. The profit motive of capitalism is a major cause of the problems we face in today’s society like: inequality, poverty, alienation, crime, discrimination, homelessness, etc etc. Each day we witness that we live in a world full of greed, injustice, oppression, wage-slavery, class distinctions, racism, sexism, hate, homophobia, exploitation, military madness, religious fundamentalism etc. And in this current world Capitalism is the dominant ideology and therefore our main enemy.Now some people will say: “Keep your politics out of the punk/HC community!”. Or may not be interested in politics because they feel you can’t do anything to bring about change. But maybe you should be interested. Politics, after all, is very much interested in you because you are component of what is called the labor market, you are part of the current political system. They admit that one of their roles is to manage the economy, and most important component of the economy is YOU! You are an absolutely essential part of the power and wealth of your fucking bosses and political rulers. Only as long as you accept this inequality, which has so many destructive consequences, can it remain! As said before SEEIN RED is a PUNK band, but what does that mean? Punk means a thousand different things to a thousand different people, but all that really matters is what it means to you. There is this D. Boon sticker that says: PUNK IS WHATEVER WE MADE IT TO BE and that’s right on!Punk to us is more than just the music, we don’t want it to be just another music scene, a youth subculture, a fashion parade or another fucking trend.We want to be part of something that stresses the importance of political thought and action in the punk/hardcore community. It sometimes seems like speaking one’s mind or expressing yourself at shows has become an issue to fight about. The calls to ‘’Shut up and play!” , and “leave your politics at the door!”, or “You’re PC nazi’s!” etc, are becoming more regular. These people don’t want to hear us talk in between songs, they just want to hear the music, they want to be fucking entertained. Well we do entertain but at the same time we use the fucking microphones, and the space we are playing in, to SPEAK OUT! No matter if there are assholes trying to shut us down.We try to keep punk from becoming pre-dominantly contentless and superficial.The punk-community is one of the last places where we can still voice our opinions and concerns. We don’t want that to change. We believe punk/hardcore should be an political underground movement, independent from the mainstream music industry.To quote Tim Yohannan:“What’s important about punk rock is its independence of government and corporations and its network that exist outside of that. That is, what is political, not the words, not the music as much as the independence! *LAST FM




SCIENCE OF YABRA




“One of the hardest working bands around. They will pummel you with their volume, rattle your skull with their intensity, boggle your mind with their precision and generally fill your heart with glee. An amazing blend of East Coast and West Coast post punk that will remind you of Fugazi, Rites of Spring and Drive Like Jehu.”








RACEBANNON




Racebannon is an genre-defying avant hardcore punk band from Indianapolis which formed in 1996. Begun as a screamo band on Witching Hour Records, the band has constantly evolved its sound over the decade adding in elements such as noise, metal riffs and DJ scratching. Throughout it all though they have always played an aggressive, noisy and ambitious style of rock. The band has released material on dozens of record labels and were most recently signed to Secretly Canadian.The name Racebannon is taken from the bodyguard of Dr. Quest in the TV cartoon series Johnny Quest.




ZERO HOUR / APE FACE




ZH




Dark, heavy crust/metal band also from the Bay Area, in the vein of Amebix, Deviated Instinct, and Neurosis. Short lived,with two releases (self titled 7” and a split with Apeface), and not much known about the band itself. The band featured the drummer of Econochrist.




AF




Apeface was one of the original crust type hardcore punk bands in San Jose. They incorporate classic punk riffs with scratchy glass gargling vocals not unlike Fingerprint. The music is generally melodic, mid tempo and catchy.




Friday, December 11, 2009

QUIXOTE / TRANS MEGETTI


Q


Quixote was a post-hardcore band from Kalamazoo, MI. Formed somewhere in 1996, the band featured Joel Wick of Jihad (bass), Tony Uminn (guitar) and Paul Wartella (drums). At some point Mike Gard stepped in to fill Paul’s place behind the drum set. Quixote had released most of the records on Joel’s own Makoto Recordings. Their discography consists of a 7” entitled ‘A Force’, a self-titled CD, a split with The Trans Megetti and the ‘Protests Of The Weak’ 12”, plus they recorded for a couple compilations. The band broke up in 2000, Mike joined Keleton DMD, Joel played in Sealucky.


T.M.
Some months back, Art Monk Construction received a demo from a group of guys known collectively as The Trans Megetti, who were easily living life on the sandy Jersey shore. Their statement of purpose was simple and succinct: "Once we get a van, all we have to do is play rock 'n' roll. Hi-fission, inter-stellar fuel propels their Drive Like Jehu-esque guitars (minus the self-indulgent noise) whilst a crooning urgency emulates from Mark's strangely Geoff Turner/Gray Matter vocals. Bass lines punctuate with the stability of a blind man refting the Jonestown Flood, as accompanied by the ever unrelenting beat. The four-piece known as The Trans Megetti has been together for over two years now, turning fashionably placid onlookers into whirling dervishes at first pick. A former school van (in all it's yellow splendor) has gotton them as far back as the Mid-West and up and down the East Coast of the USA, razing various venues from Oddfellows halls to CBGB's. Touring and two 7"s on Art Monk Construction have placed them on the map. Steal The Jet Keys - CD/LP released on Art Monk Construction in March 1998 - will firmly establish their uncontestable domination of it.
taken from a way old website!


HUGS
Chaotic hardcore from Iowa. One of my favs of the last few years.
Joshua Fit For Battle / Flashbulb Memory
J.F.F.B.
Joshua Fit For Battle was a prominent hardcore band based out of Newark, Delaware. Despite Joshua Fit For Battle’s effort to avoid categorization, both fans and critics often consider the band a product of the screamo uprise during the late 1990’s. The band was home to ex-members of several notable Delawarian bands, such as the Bessemer Process, Union, Coffin, and Year of the Comet. Joshua Fit For Battle’s career spanned from 1998 to 2005, until the group disbanded. The band’s releases are still distributed by distinguished screamo label Level Plane.Members of the group can now be found in various musical endeavors, such as Superstitions of the Sky, Interpol ,Hot Cross, Welcome the Plague Year, and a Petal Fallen.
F.M.
Hardcore featuring ex Target For Aggression.
EUCALYPT
Eucalypt was a band from Sydney and Newcastle, New South Wales, often compared to European bands such as La Quiete and Raein. Formed in 2006, the band has released a 3” Demo CD (November 2006), a split with Melbourne’s Needletail (February 2007), and a split with Brisbane’s Sophora (June 2007). A vinyl release containing the songs from the Needletail split, along with others from the same recording session, is currently in the works, as well as a split with Majorca. The band’s guitarists take the unusual step (as far as bands go) of playing entirely without distortion, despite a number of fast-paced sections and the aggressive drumming that punctuates most of their songs. Eucalypt features ex-members of Bene Gesserit and the john wayne gacy trust fund.
DOT FLASH LINE



Dot Flash Line is one of the only rock bands to combined a cello & electrical blast beats in a live setting to form a sound, that can not be labled as one given genre of music.Dot Flash Line may fall underScreamo, Hardcore or Indie “”ROCK”“
CAUGHT IN THE FALL / EYES OF VEROTIKA
C.I.T.F.
We were a band from summer 2000 to about summer 05. We never “officially” broke up or played a last show but its safe to say, its over. We put out a bunch of records and demos, went on a bunch of tours, made a bunch of friends and had a whole bunch of fun. (LAST FM)
E.O.V.
A screamy punk band from Omaha.
BORN AGAINST
Born Against was a critically acclaimed left wing, hardcore punk band from New YorkThe band performed together in the four years between 1989 and 1993. Vocal duties were handled by Sam McPheeters (from Life’s Blood) and Adam Nathanson (also from Life’s Blood) was the key guitarist. The rhythm section frequently changed in its line-up, but some prominent temporary members of the band included Neil Burke (again from Life’s Blood) and Tonie Joy (from Universal Order of Armageddon and Moss Icon) on bass guitar, Melissa York (later in Team Dresch and The Butchies) and Brooks Headley (also from Universal Order of Armageddon) on drums. After Born Against disbanded, McPheeters formed Men’s Recovery Project with Burke and, later, Wrangler Brutes with Headley. Nathanson went on to form (Young) Pioneers.Born Against released several records on the independent label Vermiform Records. Albums included Nine Patriotic Hymns For Children and Battle Hymns For The Race War. Of particular note is the Eulogy 7” that was dedicated to Steve Reddy of Equal Vision Records.Born Against (and Rorschach) also owned Sick of It All on a radio show discussing censorship.