Indian Taker - Tule Fog EP

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Thank you to My Endless Minutes for introducing me to this amazing band.  This is the best thing I have heard in weeks!!  A little Screamo, a little straight forward Hardcore, a smattering of Indie Rock and some beautiful spoken word interludes make for one of the most complete sounding EPs of all time.  I might have a new favorite band!!  Well, to be fair, I seem to have a new favorite band at least 6 or 7 times a month... These five songs though... Wow!!  This should appeal to fans of On The Might Of Princes, My Heart To Joy At The Same Tone and all 90's Emo.

John Cota & Ten Thousand Leagues - Split 10"

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Picked this beautiful Green 10" up at the John Cota/Panthalassa/Carrion Cathartid show at Black Lodge last night. The men in John Cota are some of the nicest fellas I have met in ages. Totally easy going and fun to talk to. This record represents a perfect pairing of two bands that belong on vinyl together. John Cota from the Bay Area and Ten Thousand Leagues from Los Angeles compliment each other quite well on this record. Both bands are playing pissed and driving Screamo Hardcore with bite. The easy comparisons would be Neil Perry and Saetia but I also get the feeling both bands are influenced by some of the more Twinkly stuff out there like Snowing or Empire! Empire! (I Was A Lonely Estate). There is a wonderful, dark gruffness to these songs that just drills right in to my chest and tears my heart out. Also, the drummer from John Cota is named Max and he is one of the sickest drummers I have seen in a long time. Totally awe-inspiring. Buy this record from Radical Friends Records.

Suffocate For Fuck Sake-'Blazing Fires And Helicopters On The Front Page Of The Newspaper. There Is A War Going On And I´m Marching In Heavy Boots' LP

  

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Coming from Sweden, Suffocate For Fuck Sake have described their own music as sounding like  “Sigur Rós, Breach, Cult of Luna, Mono and Mogwai, all playing at the same time”.  I would say that is a pretty good comparison.  Maybe throw in some later Funeral Diner or Raein for that extra shot of spazzy freak out.  They play sludgy, drawn out compositions based on an almost schizophrenic feeling of hopelessness.  The album is heavily laced with samples telling the story of a girl, who with the help of her mother, a friend, and a doctor, looks back on the time she spent suffering in a mental institution.  There are not a lot of vocals coming from the band, mainly the samples used as the storyline.  This gives the album a very heavy air of self imposed misery and fear.  Maybe it's just me, but, this might be the perfect soundtrack for these rainy Seattle winter days.  I don't feel like going outside or interacting with people in the slightest.  Only sitting here wallowing in my own self pity.  I think these songs would sound better if you used headphones.

Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach Still Has It.

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I am thirty three years old.  I did not hear Jawbreaker until I was twenty three.  Bivouac being the first record I heard.  The album that completely changed my life.  Though, I had known about them for a long time before that.  Having been involved in the Punk/Hardcore community in the Midwest for awhile, very few bands escape the radar when kids are starving for any sound from "out there".  As a younger man I explored every facet of the scene to see which social group I could most comfortably align myself with (as young men are prone to do).  First, at Thirteen or Fourteen, it was Straight Edge.  That was fine for awhile,  we loved Minor Threat, we loved Uniform Choice, we loved skateboarding and Coca Cola.  All fine activities for children before the discovery of girls, alcohol and the almighty plant.  Eventually, middle school became high school.  I was left with little comfort from my peers.  Sure, I had a few cohorts with similar beliefs and interests.  Mainly skating around, getting stoned, listening to Black Flag or Minutemen.  Some friends were getting turned on to bands like Braid, Evergreen, Still Life.  At the time, maybe I thought those sounds were just a bit too tame for me.  I was hearing Crust and Grindcore for the first time, absolutely falling in love.   I could never explain to Willie what it meant to me that, while he was developing a love for 311 and Sublime, I was getting more out of bands like Septic Death, GISM or Deviated Instinct.  I am sure those bands from our youth still meant plenty to him,  I just didn't understand why his tastes were beginning to travel so far askew of our original path.  My beliefs, and clothing were getting a bit grimier, while he was beginning to resemble the jocks we fought so vehemently against when they would hurl insults, rocks and fists at us after school.  Looking back, I realize how closed minded I was.  If it wasn't Hardcore for the Hardcore, I didn't want to have anything to do with it.  How ridiculous.  Needless to say, our friendship did not last.   I wonder what ever happened to him?   Eventually...  1995, Graduation, escape from Wisconsin!!  As soon as I had a bit of money saved up, I decided to buy a ticket to California.  Oakland to be exact.  I wanted to be where Gilman was.  I wanted to walk the same streets that Neurosis walked.  I wanted to live the Crust Punk dream.  With my Dreaded Mullet just right and my clothes patched up with all the right band patches,  I sure looked the part. The problem was, it just wasn't moving me the same way it had a few years prior.  For all the shocking, outward imagery and revolutionary banter Crust Punks had, there was very little action.  The music was not standing up to the message.  I saw far too many punks succumb to living for the bottle, the needle, the nothingness.  Shit, I am plenty guilty of wasting my life away on pointless substance abuses.  It is still a struggle today.  Maybe that is why I am writing this blog.  Sober now,  I feel like my mind is finally clear after years of clouded motionlessness.
     Anyway,   the late nineties were filled with hopping trains, organizing Food Not Bombs, collecting vintage typewriters, writing as much as I could and exploring new sounds.  I was finally beginning to understand the attraction to Classic Rock.  Robert Johnson became a salvation.  Suddenly,  those bands I was too afraid to grasp as a younger man were beginning to make an impact.  I devoured everything Ebullition Records, everything Gravity Records, everything No Idea Records, anything and everything that was or could be considered Emotional Hardcore.  Frail, Jasmine, Ivich, Current, Portraits of Past, Reversal Of Man, Forstella Ford, the Ladderback, Orchid.  These bands were proving you could write thoughtful progressive lyrics without having to resort to tired cliches.  I had found a new favorite sound. 


     The new Millennium was upon us.  Everyone was in a panic, wondering if the world was going to go black at the stroke of midnight.  Luckily, 2000 came and went with little fanfare.  I had just moved back to the Bay Area after a much needed break from the road.  I was living in Richmond with a roommate who had the largest record collection I had ever known.  It was a veritable wonderland.  Everything from original Avengers records to one off pressings of Zappa bootleg 45's!!  One day, as I was exploring the letter J in the LPs, I happened upon Jawbreaker.  I hadn't thought of them for a long time.  But, I had learned one really important thing about them by then...  Girls ABSOLUTELY loved them!!!  Shit, if the ladies like them, than they would have to like a guy who likes them, right...?  I might as well throw it on the turntable and see what all the commotion is about.  Holy Shit!!!  First song!!!  "Shield Your Eyes"!!!  Fucking Brilliance like I had never heard!!  And those lyrics!!!  Never before had I encountered such naked, raw emotion!!  And the title track!! Ten minutes and six seconds of hectic, distorted beauty that made me weak in the knees!!!  At that moment, Jawbreaker became my favorite band.  'Unfun' is certainly a fine first album.  Filled with shining moments of the wonder to come.  'Bivouac' is, well, quite possibly the greatest Pop/Post/Punk/Hardcore/Emo/Whatever record ever made.  '24 Hour Revenge Therapy' is also amazing.  Absolutely tear jerking Post Punk written by a man who could only speak from his heart.  Lyrics laid so bare, it was almost discomforting listening to them.  Shit, I even enjoy listening to 'Dear You'.  Unfortunate for me, I had, by years, missed the boat on ever seeing them live.  Jets To Brazil was a competent replacement.  'Orange Rhyming Dictionary' had some very strong, stand out tracks.  Still, where was the energy? where was that bitter restlessness?  Where were those tears of rage?  Gone with the years, I guess...


Enter Forgetters.  The first new band from Mr. Schwarzenbach since Thorns Of Life, and the first to produce any vinyl.   This self titled double 7" is a welcome return to form for Blake.  Gone is the polished Pop of Jets To Brazil, opting instead for that fuzzy, distorted, whiskey and cigarette delivery we all loved so much.  The songs are darker, more driving, more in line with 'Bivouac' than anything from the three Jets albums.  Hallelujah!!!!  Also featuring Caroline Paquita from the band Bitchin' on Bass and Kevin Mahon from Against Me on Drums.  This is a much appreciated reintroduction from one of the most amazing lyricists of the last thirty years.  Thank you Blake,  Welcome Back.