Chrome Jesus-Anti-Aquarian CS (2009)

I've been reading about land disputes in medieval Tuscany all day, so I have about as much energy as a medieval peasant. So I'll cut the shit and just give you whatcha want, music-
Digging potatoes.

This is a 200-copy tape Wes Eisold, Cold Cave boywonder, put out a few years ago. Noisy, cluttered, clanging electronic noise with beats buried underneath. It's a lot closer to the Prurient end of things than the direction Cold Cave's gone in since. Hospital Productions released it...good luck finding it for less than $50 or so, these days.

*Edit, 8.3.12: I re-upped the file, you can now download it here *
*Edit, 10.18.13: And again, get it here *

Catholic Spray/Piresian Beach LIVE, Budapest, 14.10.11

This is easily the dumbest-coolest show flyer I've ever seen. I wanna send it to my anarchist friends back in Chicago to finish burning my bridges with the political punk scene.

More important, however, is the event it advertises-
Catholic Spray is playing with Piresian Beach in Budapest tomorrow (October 14th) night. It's by far the coolest thing going on in the Danube River valley, I assure you. If I was in Hungary, I'd start my booze binge now so as to be ready for this thing.

Info for those who can't read the poster:
Trafik Klub
Mikszath ter 2.
1000 HUF

See RNR666 or foldalatti.eu [both in Magyar] for more info.

GO!

Catholic Spray-Fruits of the Moon LP (2010)

     Most of the current crop of garage-beachpop contingent here in the States can't get over or past trying to sound like they're a long-lost Phil Spector side project. Across the pond, however, a lot of the better Euro garage groups skipped that junk 'n' headed straight for the Nuggets collection.

   Mining the Nuggets vein for all it's worth, Paris' Catholic Spray dropped this 7-song collection of snarling, snotty blues punk last year. The lead guitarist gets off some sweet licks, and I love the singer's voice: the lyrics are unintelligible, but he gets over with the pure force of his howling. The trashed dual-harmony vocals on "The Only One" make it my flimflamfaveotune.

Frogfuck killjoy! Check out the CS webpage for tour dates and more albums....

Layne L'Heureux/Blood Noize split CS (2011)

First of all, I apologize to these guys for taking so long to post this.

After several listening sessions, each of which left me more conflicted than the last one, I have decided that I like this recording. But it's a weird sorta liking, lemme tell ya....:
Layne L'Heureux's three tunes sound like they could have been recorded in a Seattle/Portland/Olympia basement ca. 1993. "Disease" is almost as good as the Dinosaur, Jr. song I think he ripped off. I will be listening to these for a long time.

-Blood Noize is a different beast altogether. The first two songs sound like each band member is playing a different song at the same time. It's hard to listen to music that's going in three directions at the same time. They almost pull together a real song on "Water Visions," and finally get it together for Billy Bao-esque noise slop on "The Eagle Strikes at Dawn." In fact, the singer gives Mattin a run for his money: he sounds like a goblin being kicked in the ass by a swamp witch while mucking out her privy.

 The entire Blood Noize side sounds like each band member came into the studio with a different idea of what each song sounds like, refused to listen to the others, and resolutely insisted on playing their own version, until they all lost interest and stopped playing. It's the most amusing piece of dumbness I've heard in a long time.

Dive in and swim. Check out Blood Noize's inspired stupidity here. Layne L'Heureux's rex live here.

Rational Animals-Perception becomes reality 7" EP (2009)

There's not much to say about this band that ya don't already know. Heavy, drug-addled hardcore from the theoretical physics thinktank otherwise known as Rochester, New York. Their debut EP is a lot rawer and direct than this year's Bock Rock Parade LP. One of the better east coast HC bands right now, f'sho'.

Get wicked, bro! After getting wicked, buy the 7" over at Feral Kid Records.



These guys totally woulda loved Rational Animals, if only they could tour the Stone Age:

Alone and Forsaken II: Lost Highway

Back from a crisis-induced hiatus, I bring you the second installment in the Alone & Forsaken mixtape series, which will no doubt fizzle out after this mix.

Rza, Pink Reason, Gil Scott-Heron and the Mekons all on one mix? I can hear you thinking it:  Sheer hubris, utter stupidity! Maybe, but I've been listening to this one nonstop for the past week and the songs have all woven themselves together in my brain. Love it or hate it, fuckers.

...all alone and lonely....

1. Rza-Dead Birds theme
2. Pink Reason-Dead Friend
3. The Scrotum Poles-Why don't you come out tonight?
4. My Bloody Valentine-Sometimes
5. Beach House-Turtle Island
6. Glass Cake-Foster City
7. cldscp-Sade
8. The Magnificent Arrows-If I had a little love (rehearsal take)
9. Joe Strummer-No Reason (from the Rude Boy soundtrack)

10. Α. Κωστής-Αδυνάτισα Ο Καημένος

11. Gil Scott-Heron-I'm New Here

12. Elliott Smith-2:45 am

13. The Mekons-Lost Highway

Triptides-Tropical Dreams LP (2011)

There's virtually nothing I can say about this band that the album cover doesn't say for me. Triptides is probably the most talented band yet in this beach-garage-nostalgia wave we're still going through.

All seven of these songs are mindblowingly pleasant. I hate the beach, personally, but then again, this band's from Bloomington, Indiana: "landlocked sandrock." The hooks are catchy, the vocals dissolve in a coastal shimmer, and this thing really makes me just wanna surf. Even though I don't skateboard, let alone surf. Whatever. I think this is the sort of stuff everyone in California was listening to circa 1965.

SANDROCK! Check out the band's website, and buy their albums! YES!

Genia Tous Xaous-s/t LP (1986)

"you have to deal with it/it is the currency...."-The Clash, "Hate and War"

The first thing I read on Al-Jazeera today was coverage of another chapter in the murder of the Greek working class, so I figured I'd post the first LP by Γενιά Τους Χάους (lit. "Generation of Chaos").

The fellas in Γενιά bring us 11 well-constructed, mid-tempo goth-punk anthems addressing...well, my modern Greek dictionary is failing me on most of these song titles. They sound pretty pissed off, though, and I'd imagine early-'80s Greece could only seem like a good place in comparison with the current situation there. My guess is a song titled "Μαύρο, το χρώμα της στέρησης" ("Black, the color of deprivation"[?]) is even more relevant in 2011 than in 1986. The music's consistently good, with solid production and atmospheric guitar.

kατεβάζω/download! This is long out of print...and if you're in Athens, you should probably be smashing windows, not record-shopping, anyway.

Busy Signals-S/T LP (2007)

There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who drink to hide from their problems, and those who drink to enhance whatever good times they're already having. Usually I fall in the former group, but this LP makes me wanna be part of the latter.

Sweet as that Bazooka Joe you're chewin', the Busy Signals were one of my fave live acts when I lived in Chicago. Monster-size guitar leads, a perfectly arranged rhythm section, and dual vox: the Signals have (had?) everything you ever wanted in a garage band. They weren't the most original group I've ever seen, but this is a blog called "Drug Punk," after all.

I think I love you.... The LP is still available, buy it!