It Came From California!

Last month’s mixtape was a bit of everything, this time I’ve got some sort of a concept thing going since all bands represented here are old bands from California. This is the kind of hardcore I first got in contact with, through bands like Bad Religion and Pennywise, and it’s still a style I’m totally into.

Get it here: http://rapidshare.com/files/61865586/07VACALIFORNIA.rar

Bad Religion’s always been my favorite band; they started out way back in 1980 when they were 16. Greg once said that the best advice he ever got was when someone told him not to break up his band and just keep going. Which they did, despite a small hiatus and a dodgy record in the mid eighties, and with the help of Circle Jerk Hetson they sticked together were most other bands quit and when Brett came out of rehab they recorded ‘Suffer’, quite possibly the best punk/hardcore album ever made. Now in 2007, they’re still going strong, having just delivered another great record. Be sure to check them out live somewhere.

The Adolescents are another one of my faves, with the infectious punk classic ‘Amoeba’ from their classic self titled ’81 record. Which is probably my favorite album from the early eighties. They released some stuff after that but that wasn’t so good. They did however release a decent comeback album in 2005 called ‘OC Confidential’

Another well known classic band was TSOL who released the classic ‘Dance With Me’ with the funny shock punk song ‘Code Blue’ (a song about sneaking into the mortuarium at night to fiddle with the dead). Just like The Adolescents they did some sketchy stuff after the early eighties and they came back to form in the 21st century. They released a couple of new albums on Nitro records, which are not bad but aren’t nearly as awesome as the old stuff.

Everybody knows NOFX, but not everybody seems to know these guys have been around since 1983. Their story is kind of the opposite of the above 2. NOFX started out with a bunch of shitty albums and it wasn’t until 1992 they released the classic ‘White Trash, Two Heebs And A Bean” album. They continue to this day to release cool albums and they have a second live album planned for November 2007 called They've Actually Gotten Worse Live!, the sequal to I Heard They Suck Live . The song here is from their 1985 debut 7” on Mystic. Rated 8 on the suck-o-meter by themselves.

Surf’s up with Agent Orange; classic surf punk from California. The song here is the original version of Bloodstains (there’s at least 3 versions, if not more). Their mix between SoCal hardcore & surf still sounds fresh today, so if you don’t already have ‘Living In Darkness’ you should get it asap! They also did a second album called ‘This is the Voice’ which is surprisingly not crap, in fact it’s even really good although quite different from ‘Living in Darkness’. They also never really quit playing I think since they’re actually on tour right now and I missed them a couple of years ago when they played here, but their only new record since the eighties is a 1996 record that I never heard, but it’s supposedly more power pop/surf orientated. Later they also did an album on which they rerecorded some old favorites and in 2003 they released a disc containing some old stuff from the late eighties.

Social Distortion’s one of longer living bands from the classic era of California hardcore and like Agent Orange, they incorporated elements from different music in their style. No surf however for these guys but old time rock ’n roll & rockabilly. With later albums they’d move more and more into that direction and they had some mainstream succes in the nineties. A new album is rumored to come out in 2008.

I already mentioned Circle Jerks, who are most wel known for their classic debut ‘Group Sex’ but unlike many others they released more than one good album, in fact they released a whole bunch of good records before they split up in 1989 when Hetson left to play with Bad Religion full time. By that time Rogerson and Lehrer had already left. They did a comeback album in the midnineties and today they still occasionally play shows when Bad Religion isn’t touring. A new album is rumored to be released in 2008 and a new and totally awesome new song is posted on their myspace.

Some lesser known heroes were the The Plugz. Formed in 1978 they were probably the first Latin punk band and also the first LA band releasing their records on their own label. They released two great full lengths before calling it quits, appeared on the soundtrack of cult movie ‘Repo Man’ and they even did some stuff together with Bob Dylan in 1984. Featured here is a cover of Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba. After they broke up members went on to forms bands like Los Cruzados, The Psychotic Aztecs and Tito and the Tarantulas. The latter you’ve seen in the Robert Rodriguez move, From Dusk Till Dawn as the band playing in the Titty Twister and are still playing today. Vocalist Tito Larriva is also seen playing small parts and cameo’s in other Rodriguez movies such as Desperado, Once Upon A Time In Mexico & Grindhouse.

The Weirdos broke up in 1981, but not before releasing some great classic stuff. Their song ‘We got the neutron bomb’ is a true early LA punk classic and is featured here. They did a comeback album in 1990 but I’ve never heard it so I’m not sure if it’s any good. They’ve haven’t been unaffected with the recent trend of reunions so they’ve been playing shows again since 2004 with Circle Jerks bassist Schloss.

One of the first hardcore bands was Black Flag. Greg Ginn had formed the band in 1976 under the moniker Panic, a name they later changed to Black Flag in 1978 because there already was a band named Panic. I don’t think there are any recordings with Panic, but it was supposed to sound like The Ramones. The song here is called wasted from the first Black Flag 7” ‘Nervous Breakdown’ from 1978. Singer Morris would quit the band in 1979 and would go and form the Circle Jerks with Red Cross guitar player Greg Hetson. He would be replaced with State of Alert singer Henry Rollins and they’d record the milestone record ‘Damaged’

The Northern part of California also had it’s slew of famous bands, most notable perhaps The Dead Kennedys from Frisco. The song here is the classic ‘California Über Alles’, Which accuses then Californian Senator Jerry Brown of being a fascist who got mad with power. Dead Kennedys were (in)famous for their sarcastic razor sharp lyrics and provocating art work. Not to anyone surprise, lawsuits followed and eventually they broke up in 1986 after releasing a whole bunch of great records with even better lyrics.

One of the most aggressive bands of that time were Battalion of Saints from San Diego. The song here is ‘The Second Coming’. The band released few records before breaking up in 1985, mostly because all band members were dead. Guitarist Chris Smith overdosed and drowned, bassist Barry Farwell died of drug related health problems, Dave Astor blew his brains out, and Don Diaz died of AIDS. Singer George Anthony resurrected the band in the mid nineties but apart from that I don’t have any info. So if anyone knows anything more, feel free to fill me in.

Ill Repute are a so-called Nardcore band from Oxnard, California. They’re still around today although they haven’t released anything new since 1998. The also never got the attention they deserved because they put out a bunch of great records. The track here is from their first 7” which kind of sounds like a thrashy Circle Jerks. They broke up in 2004, but got back together in 2006, broke up again and got back together. So it’s not really clear what’s up today.

Another nardcore band were Stäläg 13, I don’t have many info on them except they release an album called In Control in 1984 which is really good. They have a website, but it doesn’t have much info except some old tour dates from 2003. Anyway, the song here is called Conditioned and it’s damn good skatepunk song.

Last song on this side is from The Seeing Eye Gods, a side project from Bad Religion guitarist & Epitaph founder Brett Gurewitz who at the time did a lot a drugs. TSEG play psychedelic pop that kind of sounds like the Beatles when they were on acid. It kinda reminds me of Bad Religion’s Into The Unknown, only better. It’s not bad, but I’m sure happy Mr. Brett got into rehab and Bad Religion got back on track.

Check back soon for SIDE B with some more obscure stuff.

Hardcore Mixtape!

I discovered some pretty cool bands on Hopeless such as The Nobodys, The Queers & Mustard Plug and got reacquainted with old favorites Heckle. But this time I’ve decided to go for some more familiar territory and go for some harder stuff. So let’s check this cool mixtape I got.

download the shizzle here http://rapidshare.com/files/59068269/BTD.rar

Side A starts off with The Enforcer from Leeway from their semi-classic album “Born To Expire”. The intro of the song is hard and unforgiving and it’s a song about Clint Eastwood, how very cool is that.

Next up is 59 Times The Pain with the song Can’t Change Me. 59TTP were a cool Swedish band on Burning Heart Records. Over the course of their existence they gradually evolved from a typical hardcore band to classic punk not unlike The Clash. This song is from their album More Out Of Today which falls somewhere in between, which I think is their best stuff, sort of a best of both worlds thing. Can’t Change Me is classic hardcore with an underlying sense of melody which makes this song great.

Negative Approach shouldn’t need an introduction; they’re one of those old classic bands that you need to know about if you want to talk about hardcore. Can’t Tell No One is the first song on their self titled 7” record, which is considered one the best hardcore releases ever. One thing I find somewhat weird is that they recently played a reunion tour. It’s been over 20 years; I wonder what they did in the meantime.

Talking about NA, the next band has a lot of NA influences in their sound. I’m talking about Direct Control here off course, which have been called America’s answer to Dead Stop. It’s clear to hear why as they both played furious Reagan era hardcore. They even have a song about Reagan called Ronnie’s dead.

We continue fast & furious with skatecore thrashers Bones Brigade. To bad they called it quits last year after releasing 3 records. It was hard not to like the uncompromising 80s style skatethrash on their amazing record I Hate Myself When I’m Not Skateboarding. It was released on Porcell’s Fight Fire records which has since mysteriously disappeared. This is most unfortunate because it was a promising label with a bunch of cool bands like Porcell’s own Never Surrender.

Around the same time I first got to know Bones Brigade I also listened a lot to Between The Lines. A Belgium band with old NYHC influences, they never received the recognition they deserved and since the release of their excellent LP I never really heard from them again although they haven’t broken up. I suppose some band members were busy with Dead Stop in the meantime but now DS has quit maybe we’ll hear from BTL again sometime. I guess they just need a wake up call (haha)

Since we mentioned Dead Stop already a couple of times let’s throw in a song here; one of the more popular live songs, Reagan Youth, a cover by, you guessed it, Reagan Youth.

Hard Resistance are next with their eurocore classic Who Pays Your Bills. Eurocore was popular back in the nineties with a lot band coming out of Belgium, Holland & Germany. Even though back than it wasn’t called eurocore. By the beginning of the new century is was popular among newjacks & washouts to ridiculize this kind of hardcore but I guess by 2007 people like those are long gone from the scene anyway so who gives a shit right?

One of the few bands remaining from that era are Backfire! represented here with their classic track One By One. They released their last record in 2003 and they have recently signed to GSR and a new release is planned for 2008.

Another band from that era but from an entirely different scene were Congress. The legendary H8000 band has recently played their last show and together with Liar the last of the original flag bearers have quit. The song here is the fan favourite Conspiracy of Silence from the classic groundbreaking, earth shattering EP Euridium, a true milestone in hard music if there ever was one.

To conclude we’ll shove some metal up yours, here’s Anthrax with the classic Caught In A Mosh.

Check back soon for the B-Side!

Hopeless Records review

Next mixtape up isn't really one but it's a bunch off songs you can download at the website from Hopeless Records. I wanted to check out some new stuff so I picked a random label to see what they got. Hopeless records was the third name that popped in my head after Blackout records & Rivalry records but since the latter two have no working sites fuck them and let's check Hopeless Records. Right click on the bandnames and save-as to get a song. or just go to the download section at the Hopeless site. There's also a video section in case you want to get a hard-on watching cute emo boys.

I google for Hopeless Records and first in the list seems the official site. Ok, let me see. First thing on the site is an ad for Mustard Plug, there’s a familiar ring to that name, but let's not worry about that for now and continue. Second is picture of 4 dudes who look like metrofags wearing nothing but small white underpants. Apparently some band named All Time Low promoting their new cd “So Wrong It’s Right”. Hmm I can see where they’re trying to go with that one. I repress the urge to close my browser and go watch my cats kick each others asses but bravely I continue to the main site.

Site looks clean and easy to navigate. There's not a bunch of stupid crap popping up, that's good. In the side to the left there's a little media player thingie that plays a random song from the Hopeless catalog. Thank heaven for small favours that it doesn't start playing automatically; I could have been unwillingly subjected to music from All Time Low, god forbid. Ok now let's find some music. They have a download section, so let’s check it out.
First band up is Amber Pacific. They seem pretty popular as they seem to have more mp3s than the other bands. Listening to them it’s not hard to understand why. They play pretty generic emopoppunk. Doesn’t rock my boat but little girls all over the world seem to dig it so who’s to argue with them right? Got to admit; it’s pretty catchy so best check something else fast before this crap gets stuck in my head.
Next band seems something different. The song from Atom and his Package is called "Hats of the Halford", Halford being the dude from Judas Priest in case you didn't know. Imagine my surprise when the song makes fun of homosexual metal dudes and stuff like that. It’s sort of funny but only after a couple of six-packs premium pilsner at a frat party.
Avenged Sevenfold seems to be all over the place these days, so it’s no surprise they’re back here to delight us with their unique, driving blend of emopunk, zwakkmetal & the sound Chinese beavers make when you stick a lightning rod up their ass.
Also take note that by unique & driving I actually mean tedious & uninspired.
So long bands starting with the letter ‘A’ let’s see if the ‘B’ section has some better stuff. Breaking The Silence is actually a band I’ve heard before thanks to the moniker ‘featuring members of’. The classic Hopeless Records band 88 Finger Louie being the band in question here. And not unlike that other band with the ex-88FL dudes, Breaking The Silence delivers fast punk rock with emotional vocals ranging between melodic & screamy. Breaking The Silence are easily the best band in the ‘B’ section at Hopeless Records.
More generic emo with Ever We Fall, so let’s not waste much time and go straight to some better stuff. Forgetting about the alphabet we're going down with The Queers. The Queers have been at it for quite some time now, I’ve never been a big fan but the song that’s being presented here rocks hard. What’s with all these newjack bands these days not knowing how to bring the rock anyway? I just don’t get it. Fortunately the old bands still know what’s up, take The Nobodys for instance. Fast driving rocking punk rock like it was meant to be. Fuck yeah!
Let’s check out some other bands, Selby Tigers. They kind of sound like old 77 punk in a way mixed with so-called neo-wave or whatever you want to call all of these crap band starting with “The”.
Musterd Plug is up next bringing the rock in a third-wave-ska kind of way. They sound just like you’d expect from such a band from the late nineties. So if you’re into that kind of thing, you should probably already know this band because what they do they do well.
Next band up is Royden. What the fuck is a royden anyway? Never mind, let’s just hear it right? Like their name was laden with foreboding Royden delivers übergeneric crappy emopoppunk. There’s probably millions of bands exactly like this and they’re all supershitty at best. Fuck that.
Don’t, however, make the mistake of labeling Samian as just another shitty emoband because they’re not. Samian comes from a time before the world was polluted with gazillions of shitty third rate emopoppunk bands sucking some major cock trying to get picked up on MTV and get filthy rich and pretty soulless. Anyway, let’s not get distracted here and focus on Samian. I don’t like this song from their 2006 comeback album as much as their old stuff but it’s still pretty good. If you ever have the chance, check out their 1994 album “Clumsy” as it’s pretty damn good and much better.
Only a few more bands I’m going to check out. Let’s take a look at Heckle. They have long broken up but back in the mid-nineties they were ahead of their time with their frantic mix between punk rock & hardcore. Think Dag Nasty and Good Riddance or AFI & Kid Dynamite. You get the point. Good stuff.
The Human Abstract doesn’t like being original, that’s ok I just wished that someone had told them that if you’re going to rip off some another band they should pick a good one. Instead they try to be Avenged Sevenfold. I can hear Marlon Brando in my head cringe “the horror, the horror...”
There’s more bands but last one I’m going to check are Thrice. Unless you’ve been living under a stone for the last few years you’ve heard of these guys. Anyway, Thrice brings us an mixture between emocore & punk rock. Meaning it’s emocore played a lot faster than usual. This works very good actually. Vocals range mix between clean & screamed parts not unlike the late Boysetsfire. Pretty good this Thrice.

Everything Ripped Apart In A New York Minute

Hoppa, first mixtape to get this show on the road. The general theme somewhat dealing with betrayal, turning your back on bad people and starting over again.
The title and coverart are both from the noir videogame Max Payne. If you haven't played it already you should pick it up somewhere, even if you don't like videogames. If you have, play it again.

Get it right here:

SIDE A (copy/paste in a new window or download manager)
http://rapidshare.com/files/58382447/SideA.rar

SIDE B
http://rapidshare.com/files/58385504/SideB.rar




TRACKLIST:

SIDE A:

1 Dag Nasty - One To Two

2 Lagwagon -- Smile

3 Blink182 - Carousel

4 Husker Du - Never Talking To You Again

5 1208 - 1988

6 Green Day - When September Ends

7 Foo Fighters - Learn To Fly

8 Life of Agony - Through And Through

9 Social Distortion - So Far Away

10 Sick of it All - Souvenir

11 As Friends Rust - Half Friend Town

12 American Nightmare - Hearts

13 Barenaked Ladies - In The Car

14 Bad Religion - Man With A Mission

15 Boy Sets Fire - Hometown Report Card

SIDE B:

1 No Use For A Name - Coming Too Close

2 Gorilla Biscuits - Big Mouth

3 AFI - Salt For Your Wounds

4 Agent Orange - Everything Turns Grey

5 Avail - Taken

6 Face To Face - Walk Away

7 Backfire! - The War Starts Here

8 Mental - And You Know This

9 Pennywise - Every Single Day

10 Bad Religion - Billy

11 Shelter - Metamorphosis

12 Strung Out - Analog

13 Black Flag - My War

14 Ten Foot Pole - Another Half Apology

15 Sick of it All - Friends Like You

16 Agnostic Front - Last Warning

17 Lifetime - Irony is for Suckers

18 Fugazi - Promises

19 NOFX - Go Your Own Way

20 NOFX - Poseur