Oh, hell yes, party people. Whoever does the Aborted Society label outta Seattle just sent us a killer batch of videos from this year’s Chaos in Tejas. Most of the heavy hitters are there, including BASTARD, CROW, RORSCHACH, and TALK IS POISON, but the ones I wanted to share with you are from two fucking awesome newer bands. The first one is Bay Area chaos merchants MÖRPHEME, who I’ve only ever seen at much smaller shows, and whose energy always overpowers that of the audience itself. It’s cool to see them here at a larger venue where you can actually hear what they sound like, and it makes me happy to see them appreciated by the larger world of punx. By the way, these videos are all available in HD, so if you got the connection speed, check ‘em out in full screen glory…

The second video is from another semi-local band that blew everyone away on their recent US tour. CROSS STITCHED EYES contains members from California, the UK, and Germany, and despite having a great LP out on Alternative Tentacles, still seems to linger in some obscurity. Hopefully their impressive performances, like this one, will help to rectify that.

Time for my yearly ritual of trolling the web to see what I missed at this year’s Chaos in Tejas. This is the best one I’ve found so far. Fucking TALK IS POISON. What more needs to be said? If you’ve got more, send the links our way! webzine {at} maximumrocknroll(.)com

David Baird sent us this video, via Facebook, by the should-be-legendary Huntsville, AL, band THE KNOCKABOUTS. It was made by Phillip Wann in 1983. David’s MySpace page is dedicated to Huntsville DIY history, and it’s worth checking out for his audio intro (I thought it was cool, anyway). Thanks a lot!

Here’s an interesting bit from from the September 1984 issue of MRR, reprinted in the 1995 Prank Records 7″ of The Knockabouts’ 1983 demo, from drummer Greg Sklaka:

We wanted to show that you don’t have to be Jimmy Page to be in a band. We wanted to play something basic but very powerful. We really don’t know what the average person thinks of us because we hear “play sickie sado”, than someone says “boo, y’all suck.” Our first real gig was at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in January of ’83 at a talent show with three other bands. I think we shocked everyone there, especially when we played “Sweet Home Alabama”. It was kinda funny, because after we played it, someone yelled “Freebird!.”

If the people here in Alabama would look closely at our songs, they would probably relate to them. But not very many people want to do that, so we’re labeled as shit and we get fucked with a lot, especially by the cops.

Today, we have a name for ourselves, whether people say we suck or we’re good. “Where’s My Vietnam” is probably our best song. Live it’s the peak of our insanity. “I hate your guts” and “The Beautiful” sum up life in Huntsville. I think people who first liked us now have “grown out” of hardcore or the Knockabouts, but to us it’s a definite way of life.

Wonder where they are now…

We try to keep a healthy balance of the old and the new here at Maximum Rocknroll, and ANIMALS AND MEN embodies the best of both worlds. They are a great, fairly obscure DIY-style punk band that started in the ’70s, inspired by the likes of Adam & the Ants and Pere Ubu. They later evolved into the impressive minimalist punk/blues band THE TERRAPLANES, and eventually faded away. But as with so many unsung gems of punk’s past they were rediscovered and re-issued in the ’00s on Hyped To Death‘s Messthetics CD series, and an LP reissue on Mississippi Records of their three 45s and early demos.

And as seems to be de rigueur nowadays, they went ahead and reformed, played some gigs, and got some new material together to record a 12″, which was released in 2009 on Convulsive Records. As predictable as all of this is, the real shocker is that the new record is fucking great! In this writer’s opinion, it’s at least as good as the old stuff. To prove the point, here is a live version of “John of the Sword” from said 12″, which I guarantee to get stuck in your head, in a good way…

Whoa! How did we not know about this one before?

Punk in Love came out in Indonesia about a year ago, but it looks like there’s still no English subtitled version. Maybe that’s OK though ’cause it seems so corny that it might be best to make up your own dialog. This sentence, culled from Film Asia‘s synopsis of the movie, probably tells you as much as you need to know about the plot:

“With just adequate money and punk hairstyle as their trademark, the four friends make a trip to Jakarta and their mission is to prevent Maia’s wedding to Andra from happening.”

The entire is film is up on YouTube, starting HERE. Let us know if you have any more info on this one!