Cacaw-Get a Brain 12" EP (2010?)

Tips on being a successful mid-20-something in the U.S.A.:

7 a.m.: Wake up, preferably hung over, preferably unable to recall how you wound up in your own bed (or in someone else's bed, even better). Clutch your head in a paroxysm of pain, hoping that this is all a bad dream. Repeat.

7:30 a.m.: Finally crawl out of bed because that stupid alarm clock won't shut up, and because coffee will not-despite your best efforts-make itself. If you woke up in another person's bed, add the fact that s/he is starting to wake up, and ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT want you next to them when they do sober up and wake up.

7:45-9:00 a.m.: Sip coffee and munch on day-old bread, preferably alone, preferably in your underwear, alone. As you do so, ponder the deeper mysteries of how it is that, despite your best efforts, it is in fact Friday and you have in fact been this hungover every Friday for the last month (at least).

9:15 a.m.: Muster up enough courage to check your cell phone and/or social media device. Figure out how many friendships you destroyed. Make initial efforts to heal the wounds, or throw them all away. It depends on how much you drank, and how much horseshit your friends are willing to tolerate.

10:00 a.m.: Disturbed by knocking on your bedroom door. The rent's due again. Pay it, or, alternatively, think of some horseshit excuse that doesn't trick your room mates-let alone landlord-into giving you a one-day extension.

10:30 a.m.: Feel so elated about accomplishing the major feat of paying or ducking the rent that you manage to take a shower.

11:00 a.m.-noon: Make your way to your place of business. Wisecrack with your friends about last night's peccadillos, hiding the fact that you may have picked up an STD, and certainly should not be mixing with civilized humans at such an early hour.

1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.: Avoid a mountain of work. That mountain has been here since early May, but God knows that you adamantly refuse to start tunneling beneath it like a good gopher. Stare at it. Hate it. Feel reassured because it ain't going anywhere. Repeat.

~5:00 p.m.: Duck out of work as early as possible. Make your way to the local bar and/or cafeteria. Your friends-who have girlfriends (boyfriends), careers, and in general have a clear sense of real priorities, will meet you there soon.

~5:30 p.m.: Scream and shout about Marxism, the dialectic, and the newest, most awesomest punk records with above-said friends.

 ~8:00 p.m.: stumble home, reeking of beer and/or whiskey. Continue drinking while playing Cacaw or Black Flag (don't make no difference) at top volume.

~midnight: pass out in a pool of drool, sweat, and vomit. You should be too disgusted by yourself to be capable of forming coherent thoughts, by this point. In the unlucky and unlikely event that you are, however, they should be centered on the fixed idea of how dumb you are and how boring your dirtbag, degenerate life is.

CACAW IS PREEMO-PRIMO NOISE ROCK SWEETNESS, SHITBIRD.

*EDIT, 7.15.14: Just re-up'd the file, get it HERE*

The Ex-1936 (Spanish Revolution) EP (1986)

"Well I used to be disgusted/but now I try to be amused"-Elvis Costello, "Red Shoes"

"A cheap holiday in other peoples' misery...."-Johnny Rotten, "Holidays in the Sun"

I was going to post The Proletariat's 1985 Lp, "Indifference," to celebrate 9/11, but zippyshare has dropped every LP I've tried to upload for the past two days.

So instead, to celebrate the atrocity generator that was 9/11/01, I give you The Ex's "1936.' For those of you who haven't heard it or them, the Dutch band covered four original Anarchist songs from the Spanish Revolution (or Civil War, depending on who you are). Folk songs they ain't, though: "No Pasaran" is a wrecking ball, with all the urgency that the workers and peasants of Spain must have felt when they rose up against the planned military coup of Franco and his goons in 1936. The other three songs are in the same vein: bracing, intense-in-a-non-hardcore-or-noise sorta way. The highest compliment I can give the Ex is that they did justice to songs that were originally sung by people fighting and dying against Fascism.

THEY SHALL NOT PASS. You really should buy a physical copy of this album, at The Ex's website.: the booklet is a beautiful, heartbreaking collection of photos of the people who made the Spanish revolution, along with an unabashedly partisan history of the war from an Anarchist perspective.

As mentioned, I'm posting this to commemorate 9.11. Listening to this music in 2012, I can't help but feel perverse, in much the same way I would imagine it would feel reading pamphlets from 1789 in post-Waterloo, Restoration-era Europe ca. 1820: this is an artifact from a moment when people saw a chance to create a liberated existence, and took it. That moment was drowned in blood, at the hands of Communists, Liberals, Fascists, and the Nazis; but at least they fought for it. Looking back, it's almost impossible to conceive of that moment as having existed anywhere in the world.

Americans certainly can't say that. Occupy? Give me a fucking break. Even more than that, this album makes me cringe thinking of self-styled American anarchism: vegan assholes denouncing each other for being insufficiently freegan does not a revolution maketh. Ultimately, I think that 9/11 was only a tragedy for the rest of the world, particularly the global South, since it's the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. that have to live with the consequences. Sure, drones are being deployed in American cities and NYC itself more and more resembles a prison, but ultimately, us Americans deserve it: what goes around comes around, and the American middle class is finally learning what it feels like to be targeted by the state. Good fucking riddance.

Year One: Or, Alone and Forsaken Dodici: "It's the end of a fucked up year...."

Hey there, folks, lookit me! I've been doing Drug Punk for a year now. That's actually quite an accomplishment, given my favored past times, and the fact that I started Drug Punk mostly as a way to act productive while being hungover.

Bigdealyeahsowhat, this is a mix to commemorate the fact that the blog's made it this far. Since the main themes surrounding Drug Punk are heartbreak, frustration, and (self-induced) misery, that's the general theme.

Enjoy or not, non mi ne importa.

Have fun.
(password is: "exhilirated").

1. Flipper-Ever
2. The Dictaphone-Krank
3. Social Unrest-Rush Hour
4. Dusker Hoo-First of the Last Calls
5. Royal Headache-Girls
6. Buzzkox-Ever Fallen in Love?
7. Government Warning-Self Destruct
8. The Gun Klub-She's Like Heroin to Me
9. The Fagettes-You're Destroying Me
10. Wild Moth-Morning Sickness
11. Pink Reason-Livin' in the City
12. Dead Moon-Can't Help Falling in Love
13. Marine Girls-In Love
14. The Mountain Goats-Color in Yr Cheeks
15. Glass Cake-We'll work it out