Fuckin’ Reagan Youth! They ruled. Here we have a rare and mysterious recording of unknown origins! It comes off a dubbed tape from MRR’s archives and as far as I can tell is a different recording than either the first 12″ or the Live & Rare CD on New Red Archives. The sound quality is good and you can faintly hear a recording engineer talking between a couple of the songs, so my guess is that it was done in a studio. A bunch of the tracks are slightly different versions of songs that were on the first 12″, but in my opinion the coolest thing about this is the recording of “Brave New World,” which was later redone for what became the Volume 2 album. Dig the spoken word part over the awesome guitar lead at the beginning of the song! I can practically see the legions of NYC punx creepy-crawling at some long-forgotten CB’s matinee… The last song is an instrumental, and also appeared on Volume 2 with vocals (and wah pedal! Yikes…).

Download here (& thanks to Dan for separating the tracks):

1. Reagan Youth
2. Go Nowhere
3. New Aryans
4. Brave New World
5. Anytown
6. USA
7. Acid Rain (instrumental)

And while we’re on the subject… I love the first Reagan Youth 12″, the Volume 1 reissue with the extra tracks (“No Class”!), and the Live & Rare CD (some great stage banter on this one), but I never got into that second album. I know plenty of people who did though (“It’s metal… but it’s good metal”), so go figure. I do, however, love this YouTube video from this era. Such a different direction from the rest of “NYHC”…

Finally, Reagan Youth has an official website and you can visit it here: http://www.reaganyouth.net/

Smalltown – “Turn It Around”

Just got done soaking myself in the new Smalltown record. Ever since their first single I have been all about this band — infectious Stiff Little Fingers jams with a touch of mod revival and dare I say early One Man Army. The last LP was a bit polished, and while this one is definately big, the added instrumentation of horns (sparingly…don’t panic!) is a real bonus. Keep your peepers peeled for these Swedes hitting the US shores soon…

One of the greatest things about volunteering at MRR is the access to our incredible archive of records, fanzines, tapes and assorted other weirdo stuff! Mentally Unstable zine came out in 1984, has reviews of THE COMES “No Side” 12″, the GISM “Detestation” 12″, KUKL and ULTIMO RESORTE records. I have tried to scan in the reviews page, but unfortunately my scanning job wasn’t quite able to capture the insanity of the 5pt font and the ADD layout! There are reviews of records separated by country, from Holland to South Africa, Norway to Australia… So many classic records:  SVART FRAMTID, MALINHEADS… I also scanned in the cover and another random page, so maybe you can make out some of the text. This zine was from the UK, and really captures the excitement of hardcore and punk. It’s really funny too…

I’ll tell you right off I am completely biased when it comes to radio. I love it. Ever since I was a kid until today, I listen almost constantly. Right now I am listening to KUSF 90.3 FM in San Francisco which is my station of choice. It is probably because I work there but also it is my home station. Sadly, San Francisco has only one college radio station. Fortunately, Berkeley has one too.

I grew up in Quincy, MA, outside of Boston where college radio is a staple. There were four stations I listened to consistently WMBR, WHRB, WZBC and WERS. The commercial rock stations would recruit their DJs from college radio so their musical knowledge and daring would move with them. As a result the commercial stations at the time were also playing exciting and interesting music. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

When I moved to San Francisco in 1990 I immediately sought out the “good” radio stations. I was living in a shitty hotel in the Tenderloin and had only a small boom box to my name. But I needed music and was so happy when I came across KUSF. It took me three months to finally volunteer at the station. Now I have been a DJ there for 19 years.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a radio DJ. To me it was the ideal job, playing records all day and getting paid for it. I did it at home for free so I was already training for it. Of course, when I got older and familiarized myself with how the radio business works, I realized at most commercial stations the DJs were told what to play. Where’s the fun in that? There is so much great music out there. Why limit yourself? This is why I went to college radio. It’s the freedom.

KUSF is celebrating its 32nd birthday on Saturday night, April 25th at the Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight Street, SF with three fabulous local bands Kelley Stotlz, Ty Segall and I Love My Label. Come out and celebrate the joy of non-commercial radio and music. Or if you aren’t in San Francisco, join us by tuning into your local college or community radio station. Open your windows and turn up the volume. Commercial radio may be dead, but community radio should live forever. Use it or lose it.

(show flier above by Doran Shelley)

Dear Reader, you are so lucky this reissue is seeing the light of day. Pre-AMDI PETERSEN’S ARMÉ, YOUNG WASTENERS, and NO HOPE FOR THE KIDS, etc… and this is the crème de la crème. Den Danske Ungdom is an impeccable record—it’s on my top-ten of post-Y2K records, and it’s a desert island pick for sure. This record is a beast—from the first drop of the needle your hit with a wave of fervid urgency and power, that first guitar lick forever etched into one’s brain. The vocals are so pure and honest with such youthful vigor and abhorrence with every squeak and prepubescent crack being utter hardcore perfection. The songs so original/memorable you’ll want to flip this record over and over again until you’ve retained all its beauty; how often is the first record or output by a group of kids this accomplished? I’m writing all this now without having listened to it in over a week. It’s just one of those records that is an instant classic, a true rarity in today’s saturated heap of terrible to mediocre records. What I’m saying is this is a scorched earth policy. I’m putting it on now and am set to explode. Pick Your King of a new generation? You bet. (Hjernespind Records)

That’s right, every new 12-month MRR subscriber in the US can get a free copy of our now classic Public Safety compilation CD. Check out the Merch page for more info on the comp. Go to the Subscribe page to cash in. (Renewal subscriptions qualify too!)

We just got sent this rad history of Finnish punk and hardcore—Punk On Kuollut, Eläköön Hardcore. Of course it’s all in Finnish, but the photos, zine covers and fliers for shows are AMAZING! Review will be in the issue we are working on now, MRR #313…. Sorry bout the krappy scans!

The May issue of Maximumrocknroll is filled with tons of exciting punk projects, new and old. Our cover feature is a long-overdue interview with Portland’s Criminal Damage. We talk to Stef Petticoat of the legendary late 1970s/early 1980s one-woman German punk band, the Petticoats, as well as current New Jersey wailers, Screaming Females and Bay Area veterans, Never Healed. We’ve also got interviews with Minneapolis art-drenched hardcore, Condominium, Pioggia Nera from Italy, Ottawa’s Germ Attak, and a history lesson with the 1977 UK punk band, The Passion Killers, and musings by long-time British garage rockers, The Masonics. All that plus scene reports from Belgrade and Illinois, new columnists, and tons of record, zine, book and demo reviews from around the world! If that weren’t enough, MRR #312 also includes the exciting second part of our Punk Health Issue (see MRR #310), featuring pieces about epilepsy, dope, and the toxic ground beneath San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point.

Order this issue of MRR on our BACK ISSUES page.

We got a big treat in the mailbox recently. From Daigo Oliva and Mateus Mondini, two of the best current photographers in the punk scene, it’s issues 8, 9 and 10 of Fodido e Xerocado photozine outta Brazil. Lovingly packaged in hand stamped and screen-printed envelopes, this fanzine is the perfect confluence of honed artistry and off-the-cuff punk rock aesthetic. The zines are chock full of photos and more photos of punk bands in action, with these issues focusing on Europe and Brazil in 2008. If you’re an aspiring show photographer, you’d do well to check out these guys’ work. The subjects feel like they’re actually in motion, not just captured in motion, and the framing is so good, well, at times it’s almost too perfect. Fodido e Xerocado put out a book recently but it didn’t quite capture the vibrancy of their work. They deserve a fat coffee table volume with nice glossy printing, if you ask me…

The zine’s in all black-and-white, so it can’t showcase these dudes’ talent with color, but here on the internets we don’t have that problem… Here’s a couple of random pix from their extensive flickr pages.

Regulations (photo by Mateus Mondini)

Kalota em Manhein (photo by Daigo Oliva)

My only complaint is that, apart from some photos of MASSHYSTERI and the cover of #8, the zine is a total dude-fest. Let’s see some more ladies in there, guys — we know they’re out there…

As a bonus, they sent me a split CD by Brazil’s MORTO PELA ESCOLA and Daigo’s band NAIFA. The graphics are cool and both of the bands shred! Thanks a lot guys, keep ‘em comin’!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mateuspatche/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daigooliva/
fodidoexerocado {at} gmail(.)com

This is your correspondent with another report from the YouTube front…

Here we’ve got some footage from “Rokk Í Reykjavík,” the 1982 documentary on the Icelandic punk/post-punk/wave/etc. scene of the early ’80s. The band that plays after the Santa Claus dude in the sauna is Vonbrigði (“Disappointment”) with a jam reminiscent of Peter and the Test Tube Babies but more raw and garagy. I love the bass player’s weird hunched-over style and the front-row Vonbrigði superfan rocking out in a tie and a vest. If you keep watching the following videos, I’m pretty sure you can eventually see the whole rest of the documentary — it’s pretty long though, and covers a wide variety of musical styles. Most of the “well-known” Icelandic punk bands of era are featured, including the Björk-fronted Tappi Tíkarrass. The soundtrack was released as a double LP and later on CD.