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I'm on vacation for the next few days, so I probably won't update Drug Punk until next Wednesday or so. Deal with it, peeps.

Kitchen's Floor-Orbit/Regrets 7" (2010)

I haven't showered in days and I can't recall what kind of or which drugs I've been doing for the last four days, so it seems like it's appropriate to feature Kitchen's Floor, finally, on Drug Punk.

KF is one of my favorite recent bands, combining an ear for harmonies with an offhandedly snarling, apathetic aesthetic. This, their debut EP, is ramshackle even by Matt Kennedy standards: three tracks of dirtbag, ultra-lo fi garage misery. The drummer sounds like Mo Tucker on percosets, Kennedy howls, hollers, and shouts over the guitar squall, and yr misery has its new favorite company.
"Still Night" is the surprise here: a slightly psychedelic, plodding concoction much slower than most KF songs, it really sticks in yr head. HERE.

Turn this on, drug out, and remember that loneliness is a dirty matress. This EP is long out of print, but you can still pick up copies of their two LPs at Siltbreeze Records.

Harry Cloud-Indian Pussy EP (2012)

This is a good recording, despite having what is unquestionably one of the dumbest titles I've come across since I got this blog started (I mean, stoopid is cool, but stupid is just stupid, yeh?).

Harry Cloud lurches, crawls, and drags his audience, willing or not, through seven tracks of alternatingly atmospheric and suffocatingly direct stoner jams here, and you can bet that there's plenty of pitfalls, booby traps, and side/soundeffects that sound like the voices in yr head.
I see this appealing mostly to those of you whose youths were spent in intense, focused study of the Southern Lord back catalogue, chilling out from this study by indulging in goofy K Records-style coyness. That's a shitty description, I know, but stoner rock guitar does manful combat throughout with a heavy dose of weirded out, kinda-pretentious-kinda-fun experimentation just beneath the surface.

Light up, zone out, stone out and freak out, freaks. HERE.

Violent End-demo CS (2012)

The cover says it all: violent music with nothing but malice lurking beneath frenetic drumming and ugly, mutilated guitar riffs.

Violent End is the current darling of the Chicago punk scene: current or ex-members of Raw Nerve, Manipulation, Chronic Seizure, Vile Gash, et. al. If you know anything about those bands you can expect a similar dose of barebones, no-frills hardcore. Angry Andy from Vile Gash delivers his trademark snarl, barking out words of hate (I can't make 'em out but I'm sure the words are as violent as the music).

I don't need to say any more; if you like raw American hardcore, you'll like this.

The songs aren't separated, so it's just one big file. Deal. Check it out here. You can still buy a physical copy from Sorry State Records. Do it, now!

Violent End is playing with Hoax, Kontaminat, and NEGATIVE APPROACH on September 9th at Chicago's Cobra Lounge. It'll probably be the show of the year, so go if yr gonna be in my hometown. For more info, read this.

Tiny Swimmers-Spurtin' Spirit EP (2012)

The email sending this my way concluded with this cryptic epigram:

"1 shot grain alcohol + 1 shot nyquil (red) + 1/2 bottle 5 hour energy = THE BRAIN DRAIN

drink it out of an empty shampoo bottle and you have yourself a CHACHI PITTMAN"

Er, yes. Minneapolis' Tiny Swimmers toss together psychedelic guitar riffs, bursts of distortion, and the odd synthesizer beat on their debut EP. The result is an often-confusing confection that works on some fucked up level I still can't figure out.

"Hey You Guys" makes you think they're doing some sort of videogame-core electronica mess, as it's followed by "Jimmy Stewart's Elephant Room," which is just noisy guitar and an insistent electric beat that for some reason makes me think of some Big Boys tune, maybe ""We Got Your Money" minus the mob choruses. "Hot Ass Bedroom" manages the difficult feat of combining harmonica with glitch beats. With mixed success.

Altogether it sounds like Tiny Swimmers is reaching for a sound that hasn't quite yet crystallized. Parts of this work, parts of it don't. It's worth a spin, so do it here.

Opus Null/Szijj Ferenc split LP (2012)

You're probably getting sick of all the Opus Null albums and obscure Hungarian bands I review for Drug Punk. Fine. I'll post nothing but ABBA reviews from now on, how 'bout that? HA! Gotcha! Go tell MOTHER I'm lowering standards!

Half the reason I keep coming back to these guys is that I never know what an Opus Null release is gonna sound like: they started off last year with a handful of badly-recorded, thrash-y demos that sounded like the Germs dragged through a dumpster east of the Berlin Wall.

On this split LP with Szijj Ferenc (more anon), the boys have evolved (is that the right word?) in the direction of the spaced out freakrock that featured heavily on the guitarist's solo EP from June. Opus Null can still smash it up-witness their cover of the UK Subs' "Imposztor," which ends up sounding like The Standells-but there's a lot of instrumental stuff where they work out sonic landscapes, with varying success. Their side is split evenly between louder, noisier punk-style tunes and weirdo instrumentals that bring them ever closer to space- or math-rock territory.

I didn't know what to expect from Szijj Ferenc's side, but it wasn't highly processed soundscapes a la early Krautrock like Popul Vuh. Dude gives us five tracks of elaborate, orchestrated long-form jams that don't sound like much that I'm familiar with. It's really fucking good, in a totally left field sorta way. Imagine King Arthur and his knights serenading ladies of the court while popping acid, drinking Three Horses lager, and tooling around with synthesizers.

If you check out Drug Punk chiefly for the noise, garage or punk I post, you prolly won't dig this, but if you're willing to take a chance on some pretty idiosyncratic stuff, get into it. If not, fuck off and get back to buying whatever Pitchfork tells you is good.

Listen and download HERE.

The Dictaphone-Muzak EP (2011)

The Dictaphone brings you another piece of tightly-controlled misery on this late-2011 EP. Whereas the material on this year's Let's Not settles into a miserably mopy series of loping basslines and burble-growled incoherent lyrical nonsense, this is a bouncy, noisy, energetically contorted series of no-wave squall and harsh guitar. "Sleep Maps" even has one of those annoying fade-outs where it sounds like the guitarist left his guitar leaning against the amp and walked outta the room.

"Died Horny" is a delightful mix of maniacally repeated synth notes and guitar fuzz thrown together and put on repeat. I've had a headache for the last five days such that it feels like I left my brain sitting in a chair whenever I stand up, and this whole album sort of sounds like that. Y'dig? If not I don't care cause my head hurts too much to think right now. Goodbye.

Get loose. You can buy it from Schmalzgrub Audiokassetten.

The Feeling of Love-So Chocolate CS (2012)

The fact that a man is making out with a cat on the cover of this cassette tells you a lot about Metz's The Feeling of Love. Well, not that much, in fact, although it hints at the perversity lurking beneath the harsh red-and-black cover.

The Feeling of Love's sound has three components: shrill, scrollsaw guitar; arrhythmic, off-kilter drumming; and a singer who howls in what sounds to me like the male version of the woman from AIDS Wolf. Being a Frenchman, The Feeling of Love's singer is a lot snottier, in a punk sorta way.

This album might be a bit too long-noiserock terrorism is, after all, a delicate proposition for most audiences-but I dig it. "Because He's the Singer" is just an almost-tuneful guitar line that the singer bounces, howls, mewls, and talks around. Most of the time he seems to be discussing Jon Spencer Blues Explosion(?). "Jordan's Rules" sounds like it's gonna be the cathartic release after the first two miserably drudging tunes, but the opening guitar riff just keeps riffing: sorta like Plastic Crimewave Sound, there's no release to found here. The singer lectures/rants/stalks over this guitar in French.

"Hand Clap Girls" unravels the blooz punk roots of The Feeling: go figure, electronic handclaps feature heavily. The music is moronically simple in the same way that the best songs on The Stooges' first album was:intentionally boring, it sucks you into a hypnotized fixation. Hell, it almost makes ya bounce! Really, though, the gold gots ta go to "I'm Nothing but a Drunk Pussy": it's a blues stomp filtered through people who've listened to the No New York comp a few too many times. The whole thing blows up in a hissing, staticy mess halfway through: it's the brilliant core of the album. Hell, I liked it so much it's on the most recent installment of Alone and Forsaken.

Listen to the tape and then buy it here. Read an interview with the frontman, Guillaume, Marietta, qua.Follow The Feeling of Love and their shenanigans on facebook. Brought to you care of Schmalzgrub Audiokassetten label.

Alone and Forsaken XIV: Deadshits.

It's that time 'o' year when it's so hot out that all you really wanna do is curl up pool- or porchside with a cold one and watch the world pass ya by.

On the offchance that, unlike me, you're in an energetic mood, here's some preemo-primo garage misery guaranteed to put a spring in yr strut if you ever get off that porch to go buy another sixer.

Rock out.

1. Royal Headache-Eloise
2. Brilliant Colors-I'm Sixteen
3. Heavy Times-You need a different life
4. Kitchen's Floor-116
5. X (Australia!)-Fuckin' Rockin'
6. Raspberry Bulbs-I Will Not Pretend
7. The Feeling of Love-I'm nothing but a drunk pussy
8. Tyvek-Mary Ellen Claims
9. The Brat-Leave Me Alone
10. Canadian Rifle-Cinder Block
11. Government Warning-Self Destruct
12. Raw Nerve-Dating Problems

Petition against imprisonment of Pussy Riot collective

Usually I try to leave politics out of Drug Punk, but this one is unavoidable-as The Clash sang in 1977, "you have to deal with it/it is the currency."

Three members of the Russian feminist group Pussy Riot are facing three years in prison for performing a song in the cathedral of Kazan. Basic human rights issues aside, this is pretty important in terms of identity/protest politics in Russia-as I understand it, Pussy Riot's one of the first riot grrl-style groups over there.

Given how indebted this blog, in spirit and style, is to Soviet dissidents like Yanka and Igor Letov, it would be criminal for me not to demand that you sign this petition immediately:

AMNESTY FOR PUSSY RIOT!

Please also attend any benefit/solidarity shows in your area.

In the interest of starting a dialogue on online file piracy...

....here's the text of a complaint that led to the Weird TV 2010 demo I posted last year being removed from mediafire this morning:

[Drug Punk readers: This is sort of a petulant rant, so only read further if you wanna know why you can't download the Weird TV demo anymore]

[begin email:]
 BDM user "lachandra" says: Hello, My Name is Hervé Lemaire , CEO of LeakID, I am legal representative of lemaire which does business under the name Metropolitan, Authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. You are hereby given notice valid under the DMCA copyright infringement notification requirements, 17 U.S.C.512. I am the designated agent of the owner of the copyrights of the images and audio/visual works listed below. I believe that the images and audio/visual works listed at the times cited below are being copied and distributed in a manner that has been not authorized by the owner of the copyrights, its agent or the law. All link below containing pirated versions of lemaire copyrighted works. The information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury. Please remove all linksAs soon as possible, we will check them everyday. Thanks to inform us about y our actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal. Very truly yours, Hervé Lemaire Leakid 15 bis rue de chateaudun 92250 La garenne colombes France 0033698211000 Contact lemaire quick -

[a list follows of about 200 French blogs and websites that shared pirated music]

To whoever lodged this complaint:

1) Do you in fact represent the members of Weird TV, who own the rights to their demo?
 2) How did you come to lump me in with hundreds of French websites sharing anime and geological textbooks, when what I shared was five or so songs by a mostly unknown Olympia, WA. punk band?
3)  Notice the melange of syntactical and typing mistakes. If you're legitimate enough to serve as the liaison between Mediafire and artists with copyright violations, then certainly you're legit enough to include indefinite articles where they're supposed to be, correct? I guess not.
4) Did you get a person to type this, or did a spambot lodge a complaint with Mediafire for you, and include French car commercials in the takedown email?
4) Fuck you generally, and fuck you in particular for not simply contacting me directly, at the email address listed on Drug Punk, explaining your request. I'm a reasonable person and respond to reason.

Silkies-Like One demo (2012)

This barely counts as a demo, since it's only one song. So take this entry as a "new band to watch" post.

Austin, Texass' Silkies do a note-perfect take on mid-'60s girl groups with "Like One." The recording showcases the surf guitar and chant-shouted vocals. They list riot grrrl as an influence as much as groups like the Standells, so it makes sense that the singer comes close to Kathleen Hanna's bratty howl at times.

Anyways, "Like One" is a great mid-August song: get into yr bathing suit, pop a beer, and hang out pool- or beachside with the Silkies.

Listen to Silkies here. They have an EP coming out soon, so stay tuned, folks.

Modern Howl-Jasco C.W. EP (2012)

Kaliningrad's Modern Howl, composed of Mssrs. Paul Von Aphid and Speed Wulf, are decidely not yr average Drug Punk group. In place of buzzsaw howl or gurgling bloody messes, they present us with a few tracks of heavily processed electro-synth.

I'm having trouble classifying this, which is probably a good thing. What I hear are sonic collages borrowing from several genres. This is dance music for drugged out losers like myself who wouldn't be caught dead in a nightclub (like Mssr. Byrne said, 'this ain't no party, this ain't no disco!') and would rather nod out on Percosets to a beat that's only marginally funky than shake ya ass to whatever the kids party to these days.

 In all probability that's not the case, and I'm guessing people do indeed dance to this stuff at nightclubs. I just dunno nuthin' 'bout 'em. The tracks feature heavy sampling cut up and scissored together in a confusing way approximating aural assault.

The only ambiance I can conjure up for this EP is as follows: nighttime in a major city (say, Chicago). It's five a.m., you've been out all night raging it, and the sun is almost starting to peek over the horizon hinting at another broken day spent convalescing from your own self-induced abuse. Yr walkin' down a dark alley contemplating where the next beer or sleeping pill is whatever and suddenly a fucking goblin jumps out from behind that dumpster, sticks a scimitar in ya, and vanishes. Ya dunno what to do! Take that! Haha!

Download "Jasco C.W." here. Mssrs. Aphid and Wulf's label has a sick amount of stuff up, check out the other releases if ya dig this.

Warsong-The Caravan 12" EP (2012)

...or, "come for the Wipers cover, stay for the chanted choruses."

With a name like "Warsong," I was expecting this Zaragoza outfit to burble through Discharge-clone songs about...uh, war.

Turns out they're a lean mean guitar riff machine. "Feel the Darkness' is a slow burning, guitar-heavy song that sounds like a Wipers outtake ca. 1979's "Is this real?" Warsong uses simple, direct guitar riffs and elegantly minimal bass, framing the infectious, chanted choruses.

This style was popular to the point of saturation in the States a few years ago, and I got burnt out on Wipers-syle punk around the time Portland's beloved The Observers broke up and the first Red Dons LP came out (ca. 2008). Warsong's pretty damn good, though, and if guitarcentric garage punk is yr cuppa tea, you'll prolly agree.

You can listen to and buy "The Caravan" EP from Zagreb's Doomtown Records or from the band's bandcamp page.

Also check out Doomtown Records' distro/online store, or their Discogs page.