A report from South Korea!

16 08 2012

Here’s a MRR.com exclusive scene report from South Korea, written by Dave Hazzan with photos by Jon Dunbar…

UPDATE: Bonus photos added to the end of this article!

In newly affluent, newly democratic, and newly open-minded South Korea, a new punk scene is developing. It’s not what it could be, but something is afoot.

Known largely in the West for its psychotic dictators to the north, and to the rest of Asia for its plasticized pop stars, Korea still fails to have a punk scene worthy of its size. Ten million people live in Seoul and another thirteen million or so live in the suburbs around it, but on a good night it’s hard to find more than 300 people out to a show.

Seoul is so big that it’s impossible to describe what it looks or sounds like. The east and north of the city are more undeveloped and raw; south of the Han River is newer and more synthetic; in the west it’s somewhere in between. But these are enormous generalizations. Whereas southern Gangnam is the best place to have your eyes widened, nose sharpened and asshole bleached, right next to it you can find rundown tenements hilariously called “villas” where old ladies supplement their non-existent pensions by carting trash through the street like mules.

Dokkaebi Assault (photo by Juyoung Lee)

In the northwest, surrounded by middling neighborhoods, is Hongdae, entertainment capital of Korea and home of the Korean punk scene. On one very sticky July night between monsoons, RUX, the 100 BLOSSOM CLUB and HUMPBACKS played a free show in a playground surrounded by bars. Hongdae, named after the neighborhood university, is described by Visit Korea as “the center of Korea’s youthful nightlife. Many of Seoul’s idiosyncratic clubs that draw the younger set are clustered in the area.” So too are three-quarters of Korea’s punk shows.

According to Hong Gu, who has played in CAPTAIN BOOTBOIS and CHADBURGER, and describes his day job as “selling yarn,” the scene “is only in Hongdae. The Korean punk scene is Hongdae!” Hong thinks it’s “shameful to call it a scene. Only a few bands are active.”

No doubt the scene is small, and everyone would like it to get bigger. But some of those with experience in bigger scenes see this as somewhat of a gift. Jonah Love, who comes from nowhere in Alaska, but when to school in Vancouver, says there are fewer shows but bigger crowds than Vancouver and people are more pumped about the music. “A lot of people coming out to play are not concerned about the size of the audience, or not to make it, they just want to hear good music.”

The mix of foreigners to Koreans that night was about 1:4, but it’s hard to tell who was there for the show and who was just passing through a well-trafficked park. Despite complaints by some that image too much a part of the scene, there were people dressed in all ways. Most were fellating cans of beer from the neighboring corner store, or drinking soju cocktails from a table stand erected by a savvy bunch of kids. (There are no open container laws in Korea.) People were smiling, there was no fighting and people seemed to really enjoy the bands, who were uniformly excellent. Friendliness is the vibe most people take away from the scene.

Caroline Pardue, 30, is an American who has taught English here for two years. “I love that it’s Koreans and foreigners coming together. I don’t think I would have met any of these people otherwise. But we have this common bond in music. It really breaks down a lot of cultural barriers.” Other people had stories about going to shows alone and walking out with twenty new friends.

Bamseom (photo by Jon Dunbar)

Park Ha-ru, 20, works at a hot dog shop and feels the same way as Pardue. “Everybody is friends here,” she says, “skinheads, punks, rockers, even girls!” Though “even girls” might seem trite to the Western ear, in seriously sexist Korea it means something. Another young girl, Yim Ye-ji, says, “It’s a small scene so everyone is friendly. You go to a skinhead show, crust show, hardcore show, I can listen to everything, because they’re all friends. It’s the same people, mostly.”

Not everyone necessarily agrees. Our yarn seller Hong Gu argues that it was all together, but since image-conscious Korean punks hit the internet they’ve decided that “‘Oh, I’m a skinhead! A skinhead is this, a punk is this!’ Five years ago, people were together.”

An eighteen-year-old who would only give his name as “Hound” says that the scene has too many “fake punks” and, “A punk should be left-wing. Here there are many fascists [in the punk scene]. Other punks, they pick on me. I’m annoyed about this.”

However immature this might sound, I have respect for the young Mr. Hound. He has two piercings through the lips, one through the septum and an enormous tattoo on his chest that I couldn’t read. Whereas in California this might be the uniform of every second chartered accountant, in Korea it’s a recipe for banishment. Which brings us to bigger issues of punk and Korean society.

Confucianism, or yukiyo, largely defines Korean society. A social philosophy rather than a religion, yukiyo is about where you stand on the social hierarchy. The youth are supposed to defer to elders, women to men, students to teachers, children to parents, workers to bosses and so on. This happens even among Korean punks.

Added to this is a massive pressure in Korea to conform. The idea of just being yourself is anathema to most Koreans — you must fit in. Failure to do so can mean you’re ostracized and that can mean no work, no means of sustenance, and the next thing you know, you’re on the streets scavenging for pop bottles at the landfill. Though the situation is better than what it was, it’s still not good. By comparison, North America in the 1950s was much, much freer.

None of this is conducive to a dynamic punk scene. Korea is saturated with bad pop music from manufactured groups discovered on TV “idol” shows and sold into slave-like contracts for the rest of their miserable careers, or at least until they’re not “cute” enough to sustain a fan base. (A fan base, incidentally, that spans from toddlers to the geriatric, men and women.) The pressure to conform means that it is very difficult to get away from “K-pop.”

Yim Yeji says, “Punk is not really attractive to Korean people. There’s not a lot of chance to see punk shows. There’s too much K-pop.” Hong Gu says, “The media is all K-pop, Idols, every day. Even MTV.”

Christfuck (photo by Juyoung Lee)

Whatever one thinks of corporatized “punk” bands in America like Green Day or the Offspring, they are often the doorways that lead people to better punk music. The Korean versions of these bands are very hard to find on TV or the radio here, though they do worm their way through the cracks. It was only after Koreans overthrew their US-backed dictators in 1988 that they could begin to listen to what they wanted, though censorship stayed well into the 1990s. The first punk bands in Korea, like CRYING NUT and NO BRAIN, didn’t begin until the late nineties, when the sound was already twenty years old in the west. Considered legends now, though occasionally seen on television, are more likely to be seen and heard about by Koreans through a forwarded YouTube clip.

Won Jong-hee, who plays for RUX, another of the original bands, says that CRYING NUT and NO BRAIN are paving the way to mainstreaming Korean punk. He insists that this is not a bad thing, especially in a Korea under the yoke of conformity. These original bands “are trying to smooth the transition to mainstream music. It’s very natural and Korean music needs that, for fans to be able to go to the department store and choose what you want to hear.”

Others aren’t so sure. Hound would identify it as fake punk, and Jon Dunbar, who’s been following the scene for years, argues that it could just end up a new form of K-pop. “K-pop websites are beginning to take notice of Korean underground music, which I’ve seen getting branded as K-indie, a despicable term, and K-pop fans are starting to notice it too, but usually don’t have the discriminating tastes to be able to identify it as anything other than a new flavor of K-pop. It’s Korean first and a specific type of music second. I hope that the Korean punk scene, what little there is left of it, can avoid that pitfall.”

Scumraid (photographer unknown)

A second, significant obstacle to the punk scene is mandatory military service — every able-bodied male must serve two years and there are no exemptions for conscientious objection. According to Dunbar, “Military service is a big hindrance in the lives of almost all Korean males in their twenties and thus causes problems for the bands, which are usually made up of males in their twenties. It’s not uncommon for a band to disappear for two years.” These bands often don’t get back together, the idea being that after military service, it’s time to get serious and get a job. Read the rest of this entry »

August 16th, 2012 by MRR Web Coordinator
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Scene Reports

The MRR archives continue:
Maximum Rocknroll #5 • Mar–Apr 1983

14 08 2012

Hiya, punx! This one took a little extra time to get posted but I hope it’s worth the wait. Continuing with the MRR Archives Series in celebration of our 30th Anniversary, this complete download of Maximum Rocknroll issue #5 features some totally classic shit, like interviews with Social Unrest, Bastards, DRI, FU’s, Die Kreuzen, No Labels, Subhumans (UK), our first scene reports from Holland, Brazilian and NE Ohio, and a MDC European tour diary…. Not only that, but we have a very special intro for this issue…

Ruth Schwartz was one of the first people I met at Maximum. I remember, as a nervous 13-year-old guest DJ on the MRR Radio show at KPFA in Berkeley, how I was treated not like little kid but as a comrade, of sorts, by Tim and Ruth. An early introduction to the Ways of Punk that I would come to know and try to uphold myself. Although I never got to know Ruth very well, she has always been someone I hold in great esteem. Her resume includes being the original “co-owner” of Maximum Rocknroll, owner of Mordam Records, the person who spearheaded Blacklist Mailorder, and now the operator of High Performance Advocates and author of The Key to the Golden Handcuffs, a book about business which features a chapter on MRR’s Tim Yohannan.

During our conversation I was taken aback to learn how little involvement Ruth actually had in starting Maximum Rocknroll magazine. (And by “little” I mean none!) But I was equally stoked to learn more about her pre-Maximum days as a college radio DJ, and about MRR’s early crusades against the thuggery of skinheads and the local rock music establishment.

—Paul

Click image to download MRR #5!

How did you get into punk, and how did you meet Tim and get involved in MRR Radio?

I grew up in Huntington Beach. I migrated to Santa Rosa, CA, for junior college when I was 17, and then the Sex Pistols played in San Francisco. That was my first punk rock show. Right after that there were punk rock bands in Santa Rosa, including the Breakouts. There was a crew of us who were like our own little music scene, like 12 of us. But I moved to San Francisco as quickly as I could.

I was doing the Harmful Emissions radio program at KUSF. I had never met Tim Yohannan. I knew of him, but I don’t think I had met him until he walked into the KUSF studio one night to meet me. He walked in and said, “Do you want to be on our radio program?” I knew the Maximum Rock & Roll show (MRR Radio). I was a broadcasting student at San Francisco State. I was a music director at that station out there. I had done some shows at KALX (UC Berkeley’s station) and I had finally finagled my way onto Harmful Emissions. Tim came in and asked me to come be on Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll. That’s how I met him.

Why did Tim want you on MRR Radio?

Because I did a kick-ass radio program! When I started at MRR, Rick Scott was behind the board — Tim had another partner before that, Al Ennis — and I think he was just looking for more people. He was just out going, “I need a gang.” I think at that point he had just gotten Ray Farrell to come on, a little bit before me, and he started pursuing Jeff Bale at the same time.

Tell me about Harmful Emissions…

On KUSF, the Vietnamese news was on until 9 or 10 o’clock, and then they would shut down the station. The Harmful Emissions guys would show up at 11 or so and turn on the transmitter — they got permission from the school. Nobody else came back in the station until 7 or 8 in the morning, so they’d just do it… It was awesome, and it was always amazing that the Jesuits let them get away with what they were doing. (The University of San Francisco, where KUSF was, is a Jesuit college.)

The original three Harmful Emissions people were George Epsilante, Steven Spinali, and Tim Maloney, and they were killing it, they were just slaying it. They were awesome because they were going all night — they would just fire up the transmitter and take it until they can’t see straight. Everybody was listening to them ‘cause they were nuts. So, I met George at a party and I just begged him, “I need to be on your program.” That was around 1980.

Basically what would happen is, when the clubs would close everybody was listening to that radio show, and all the bands would go over there and be interviewed and stuff like that. It was mayhem; it was absolute mayhem. If you look at the early ’80s it was Social Unrest, Dead Kennedys… I was a Flipper-aholic. They showed up sometimes. I was like Flipper’s house historian. Later on, I remember when MDC was there, and DRI, and the Fuck-Ups…

And then it all took off when the show hit the Arbitron ratings. Arbitron is the radio equivalent of the Neilson ratings. Harmful Emissions was way underground and all of a sudden it came above ground, and that’s when people at KUSF came in. There was this bunch of guys, and they were like, “Oh, we’re really going to make something of this. We’re gonna make this into a big station. We’re going to regulate the programming,” and that’s when they destroyed it. They standardized their programming and they put in a music director and they put in a program director and they started to can it. So I would show up at night and they would give me play list, and I’m like, “I don’t think so.”

Clockwise from the upper-left: Jeff Bale confronts scummy music promoter Bill Graham, Ruth Schwartz in a photo booth!, Ray Farrell?, Mickey Creep.

What was your role at MRR Radio and how were you involved in the creation of Maximum Rocknroll magazine?

I was totally on syndicating the radio program — that was my baby. Tim gave me that because I was all about radio. So, I came to MRR Radio and I became the board-op when Rick left, and then I started syndicating it. I did it for years and years, editing it with an Xacto knife — I had reels of tape, you know — and getting tapes duplicated and sending the show to radio stations all over the world.

I don’t even remember Tim making that first magazine because I didn’t have anything to do with it. I was still in school, I was working with three radio stations, I was working with Damage magazine as well, and I don’t even remember them doing the comp. Tim and Jeff decided to do the Not So Quiet on the Western Front compilation. I literally had nothing to do with that. They put the whole comp together and they produced that first magazine to go in it because they wanted there to be all the lyrics and the band information and all that inside. It turned pretty thick. There’s 47 bands are on Not So Quiet on the Western Front, so now you’ve got at least that many pages… so that was the first issue of Maximum Rocknroll.

That’s all they intended to do, and they just left it at that for a while. I started working for Rough Trade when I graduated. I remember Not So Quiet coming out, but the only time I ever touched it was selling it at Rough Trade. And then they were like, “That was fun. Let’s do it again.”

My biggest memory of starting the magazine was they said, “Would you write record reviews?” and I said, “Yeah.” I wrote record reviews and they sent them back to me and they said, “We don’t even understand why you’re a college graduate, this writing is so terrible.” I said, “Huh… Well, would you help me?” and they said “Yes,” and I said, “Well, you’re going to have to actually edit me,” and they say “Yes.” I said, “OK,” and I kept writing, and they kept editing… and that’s how I learned to write! So I credit those two guys for that — they taught me how to write. Jeff’s a professor, they were both really decent writers, and I wasn’t.

Tim Yo bankrolled the whole thing. I mean, he had nothing else to spend his money on. The whole capitalization of MRR magazine was Tim putting up the money for Not So Quiet. That thing sold like crazy, so that bankrolled the next project. I became his business partner at that stage, for about eight years. Maximum Rock & Roll was a partnership — Tim and I partnered right after Not So Quiet came out, because all of a sudden there was money. So when he said, “Okay, we’ve got to get a bank account, and we’ve got to put this money somewhere… Would you do this with me?” I said, “Yes.” But Tim had very specific idea about how he wanted to run a business, as you know.

[Oh yes, I know! We talked more about the business side of the magazine and Mordam records, and Ruth finally divesting from MRR, but I wanted to know more about the early days — especially this…]

Can you tell me about the famous on-air debate with Bill Graham on MRR Radio?

That was sort of the beginning of the politicizing of MRR. I think it was one of the first causes that Tim and Jeff took up.

There were all these really great venues in town. Paul Rat was doing the 10th Street Hall and he was going really heavily into promoting. He’s a great guy and he treated all the bands well. Dirk was doing the Mab, and he was also doing On Broadway at that point. There were a lot great venues, a lot of indie stuff going on, and it started getting big. You could fill the 10th Street Hall every weekend… Thousands of people.

Bill Graham didn’t care about Target putting on a show, but when these big halls started filling up for a Dead Kennedys show, or when all the bands started coming up from L.A., it was a really big deal. So, BGP (Bill Graham Presents) was like, “We want a piece of that.” Somebody was putting on a show and BGP sent out thugs and basically said, “We’re gonna shut you down. We’re gonna get you on fire violation, or we’re gonna get you on something…” So Tim just…went to war. Tim went Michael Moore on Bill Graham.

Quite honestly, I think that was one of the first real political things that Tim did. He got that little pointy finger of his out and went for it. That was the first time I saw Tim go aggro. Of course, the picture is of Jeff, right, pointing the finger? But it was always Tim’s finger — he had that evil finger…

From there we went onto skinheads. We had this whole series where we were bringing the skinheads into the studio. And these were our friends. These were people we saw every week at shows, for better or worse. That was really something, I thought. Like, the Bill Graham thing was really great — that Tim was willing to muckrake on that — but the skinhead thing, you know, bringing them up to the station and… I mean, Tim kinda out-talked them.

I knew all those guys — and we were all really impassioned — but I wanted to keep a good scene. I didn’t want these guys to come in and wreck the scene. ‘Cause they were freakin’ idiots, right? So if any of them were willing to come to the table and talk about, “What’s up with this? What are you doin’? Can we, like, stop it?”

What it did was it took those guys who were really nice guys but just kind of a little… misguided, for lack of a better term, and it kind of gave them a new perspective. It really segregated out all these little white supremacist guys. I think it had a tremendous impact because those guys that realized they didn’t want to be little white supremacist assholes, they started holding the space, basically, at these shows.

If you go back to the days of the Farm, nobody was standing up to these guys. Everybody was, like, cowering, and Tim was like, “I’m not going to cower. That’s ridiculous.” Which was good, which was really great leadership. The outcome of that was to get the guys who didn’t want to be assholes to be working toward creating a good environment for shows. I thought that was critical. I didn’t want to stop going to shows because of these guys. I couldn’t imagine a couple of guys wrecking it for hundreds and hundreds of people. So I thought it was really powerful.

I think it’s interesting that you stuck around. When you read some people’s accounts of the early punk scene, it’s like, “And then hardcore came, and the violence came and that was the end of it.” For them, punk rock was over and it doesn’t exist beyond 1981, 1982…

Yeah, but think of all the other things that happened during that time. The whole DC scene happened, then the Chicago scene popped and there was a really vibrant New York scene, Texas was on overload… there was so much good stuff going on.

Why do you think that so many people dropped out of punk at that time?

I think there was a certain amount of people who “grew up,” you know what I mean? “This is not that important to me.” And then there were people who were just what we called the weekenders — they weren’t really into it. They liked the music and they were just looking for something to do. It didn’t really speak to them. And then there were people like us. We were kinda leaders, we weren’t going to let it lie. We were going to stay there, no matter what, and go, “Here’s the really cool stuff that’s going on, that you should know about. People who are doing things right. And there’s a lot more of them than people doing it wrong.”

That whole mentality about creating an alternative and creating an alternative lifestyle and staying independent and all that, that’s a driving force. And one thing I’ve learned about my life, even now — and I’m not of these people who runs around going, “I’ll always be a punk.” But the other side is that I realize now, even in the work I’m doing now, which is completely different, I still feel like the disc jockey. I still feel like I’m going through all of this material and I just searching for the great stuff. And even though there’s all this stuff that sucks and doesn’t work, it’s like, “Yeah, but there is this other really great thing over here. So let’s use that!” I always felt that way, you know? There’s a thousand records out there but I’m going to play you the really cool ones.

PDF download of MRR #5 HERE. Click here to find more of our MRR Archive downloads. We’ve done our best to clean up theses scans while keeping the “newsprint” look, and to keep the file size small while still being readable. If you have any trouble downloading or reading this file, please contact webzine {at} maximumrocknroll(.)com.

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August 14th, 2012 by MRR Web Coordinator
Comments : 3 Comments »
Categories : 30th Anniversary, From the Vaults, MRR Archive

Blog of the Week: Raw Pussy

31 07 2012

Primary Impulses and Liars: An Introduction

I am inclined to satisfy my preoccupation with the supposed failures of man and the uniqueness of something’s entire existence as one saturated in discord and violence. I find these features constant throughout the history of humanity; every expression of man resonates with the next, there is no progress except that in the art of war, all else is process.

We are always attempting to control the irrepressible, struggling to survive and advance, grasping false hope and illusionary peace in anticipation of just one moment of stillness. But why fight ourselves? As if genocide, greed and lust are products of a degenerate society or the so-called evil individual — some “problem” to be solved. The only “problem” is the total disregard of our disposition which we are not taught to control or respect but rather deny and reject.

Let’s assent to our nature and refuse to shamefully hide ourselves. We can acknowledge and defend our appetites without sacrificing societal accord. We lack passion because we fear the intensity of our primary impulses but there is no dichotomy between gratification and mastery. Let us delight in both the repulsive and gracious within ourselves and accept the full identity of our spirit. These compulsions are inside us all, within mothers, fathers, your priest, the neighbors, strangers in the grocery store, your enemies, your lovers, even your grandma and pep pep and we all want the same thing…raw. fucking. pussy.

This blog was created to illustrate this fact.

What inspired you to start Raw Pussy?
In part, the idea for the blog stemmed from my studies of antiquity. I was spending fifteen hours a day reading classical texts and researching the material record of civilizations that had risen and fallen thousands of years ago. There are striking parallels between our own society and those of the past, and although this is by no means a new concept (“history predicts the future”), it is a notion that is largely ignored. I adopted a sociological perspective and became interested in aspects of human nature that have remained consistent, specifically in comparison to contemporary conceptions of the moral condition, which is generally presumed to be inherent and unchanged. (I know this seems to be deviating from the question but I promise I am getting there.) We live in a culture of shame, our social institutions encourage a repression of individual will and we voluntarily submit to self-proclaimed defenders of the “good” (the social contract). I find this to be highly problematic. Actions and beliefs generally typified as “perverse” are often a result of our natural programming as human beings. Religious ideologies that have shaped our world as if it were law are an attempt to alter the natural. This creates great problems for us. As a society, we are unwilling to accept ourselves as we are. How can we reasonably address issues of violence and war, equality and hate, education, freedom, the justice system, gender etc. if we cannot approach these topics with sensitivity to our nature? As punks, we are often attracted to what is deemed “perverse” by society, by what is destructive and unorthodox. I think it is imperative that we understand the importance of defending our interests, not just because they are ‘extreme’ but also because they are honest. Rather than focusing on music, I wanted to create a resource concentrated on ideas, a forum to expose the perverse side of humanity and embrace it. Raw Pussy, among other things, is a blog dedicated to human nature, the taboo, the erotic and the wild.

What’s your definition of Raw Pussy?
A wildly seductive, organic, lush endowment of pure, unrestrained pleasure; The defining characteristic of our animalistic, shameless, natural selves; The one thing everyone of us craves but most are ashamed to admit; A casualty of a counterfeit moral condition.

What is the thematic focus of your blog?
The focus of the blog began as an attempt to draw attention to the historical narrative of our natural character and to a lack of rationality and logic within our society. It has since evolved to feature artists, videos and essays that comment on more contemporary themes. My goal is to make information easily accessible, I try to remain sensitive to the fact that most people don’t have the time to sit down and read a 15-page essay by Nietzsche on the fly so I often post excerpts from books and poems or post videos of lectures or interviews by someone I think has something significant to say. There is usually a link at the end of each post to allow more ambitious readers a resource for further exploration. I use the blog as a forum to expose our internal, often neglected dispositions and to explore the phenomenon of a distorted and contrived world-reality (Insane Society).

What have been the most bizarre reactions from your friends or internet lurkers?
The search keywords that bring people to the blog are pretty fucking amazing: “harry raw pussy,” “Austrian pussy,” “hand in marecunt,” “self-castration” and “American cunt-fucking.” I have a feeling that I may be letting those individuals down but I’m pleased that I am part of their journey in search of strange, erotic virtual smut.

How often do you update your blog?
I have adopted the philosophy that that quality is better than quantity. Instead of posting daily, I usually chose a topic that I feel has particular substance or that I have worked on or written. However, I have found that although I may be under the impression that a post has some significance, the general trend of blog posts is that they don’t…and in this way most that may stumble upon the page will expect a magnitude of mildly interesting topics to browse and forget within the hour. So, I have since altered my approach and have recently been attempting to update 3 times a week and have begun to include essays and articles that I have found from other sources. I’m not sure if I want to begin appealing to the trend of over-information merely as an attempt to attract more readers but I’m also not convinced that it matters either way.

Does being located in Detroit, Austin, and Boston alter the way your web site is updated and the inspiration behind posts?
Traveling between multiple cities on a regular basis inevitably takes away from the time I have to update. Yet, there is no doubt that this mildly nomadic lifestyle has a great influence on the way my brain is working. For now, all of these cities feel like home but at the same time they don’t. Each place personally embodies a vastly different environment; one is totally academic, another totally chaotic, etc. Our internal dialogue is uncontrollably influenced by external stimulus. The things I post are a product of my interests. If I were fully consumed by one place I think my perspective would become stagnant.

Is your blog intertwined with your academic life?
I returned to school to study archaeology and art history because those are topics that I am inspired by and not because of the social pressures imposed on people my age to do so. Ancient history provides a context in which to consider the state of the modern condition. The study of material culture and the philosophy of thought have provided me with the inspiration to consider the ways in which the punk community creates its own material record. It is impossible to detach one from the other. My gut craves chaos but my head rationalizes these impulses — not as a means of control, but of understanding. Any commentary from my end is inevitably a product of these perspectives.

How and why did you start taxiderming (did I just make that word up)?
(I think you would say “practicing taxidermy.”) My father, grandfather and several other extended family members have all been morticians. As a child I spent a huge amount of time at the funeral home or cemetery. I suppose that I was desensitized to the dead but always retained a fascination for the art of preserving life. I followed up on a job posting for a bird skinner at a natural history museum and landed the job. I applied the training I received skinning birds in attempts to skin other animals and reptiles. I love the ways that we can manipulate the body of a creature to invent a kind of new identity after death…giving it a kind of second life. I started collecting road kill to skin and the hobby has kind of taken off from there. Now I have a freezer packed with dead animals and a garage full of ribcages and pelts hanging from the rafters to dry.

How does your taxidermy play into your blog?
I occasionally share photographs and updates about some of the work I do. I sit alone in a room for 16 hours a week with my arm shoved up the neck of a hawk and something about that activity that has become somewhat mundane to me. However, it seems like the kind of experience that is worth sharing with others.

How does your blog incorporate punk music?
I try to support music-focused blogs but it was never my intention to have this focus myself. However, the inclusion of music seems to happen naturally. I don’t have the energy to invest in posting torrent links to every rad record that I encounter but sometimes when an album or song is making me feel real good, I put it up. I’m a punk, it’s something I can’t avoid.

Do you think female sexuality makes punks uncomfortable?
That’s a complicated question. The topic of female sexuality is broadly multi-dimensional, including sociological, physiological, psychological, cultural and political facets of sexual identity and behavior. Women have often exploited the punk aesthetic as a commentary on female sexualization, whether in an attempt to challenge concepts of femininity or to redefine oversexualized perceptions of the female as a lust-object. This is a difficult concept for non-females to understand just as it is a challenge for women to sympathize with pressures of certain gender roles imposed on males. I think that the punk community is much more tolerant of the feminist conversation as a subversive anarchistic movement as opposed to outsiders but continues to lack cross-gendered support on the merits it’s actual content. The so-called ‘feminist’, or women who openly speak about their sexuality earn much less respect than they deserve within our community, which suggests an attitude of tolerance that lacks support. I think it’s fair to say that a female fronted band that is lyrically aligned with Discharge receives much more attention and support from their community than a female fronted band that is more aligned with Bikini Kill. Feminism has become a dirty word, even within punk. However, sexuality in general is an uncomfortable topic for our society. Beyond casual conversation about the ways in which we have fucked recently, we have very little conversation about our sexual identities among our peers — regardless of gender or sexual orientation. We are all raised within a society that largely teaches us to be ashamed of our bodies and dogmatically promotes “traditional” gender rolls. As punks, I hope that we can discover ways to reject this kind of conditioning and encourage an open conversation about sexuality, regardless of gender. Read the rest of this entry »

July 31st, 2012 by Amelia
Comments : 1 Comment »
Categories : Blog/Website of the Week

The MRR archive project:
Maximum Rocknroll #4 • Jan–Feb 1983

24 07 2012

Next in our MRR Archives series, in celebration of our 30th Anniversary: the complete download of Maximum Rocknroll issue #4. For this issue we asked Brian Edge to tell us about his experience working on the earliest issues of MRR, and beyond. Brian likes to keep a low profile but his hard work has been integral to so many MRR-related projects over the years that he should be considered a legend. Huge thanks to Brian Edge!

Click cover image to download MRR #4

I got involved with MRR magazine shortly after issue #1 came out. A couple of my friends had been in on the first issue, and they had told me about it, but their interest in the scene was fading and they soon dropped out. I met Tim Yohannan (and some of “the gang”) and jumped in on the production of issue #2, learning how to do basic layout and writing show reviews and such (under another pseudonym until issue #4). The mag was ultra-basic back then: word processor/typewriters, scissors, waxers, layout boards, etc. All of us volunteers would come over on Sunday afternoons for “layout parties” at Tim and Jeff‘s house in Oakland. I don’t remember there being anyone with production or graphic design experience, so we’d slap things together and hope for the best. Needless to say, the mag was aesthetically pretty minimalist and choppy.

I was learning as I went along, and not just about magazine production. I was being challenged on all levels for the first time in my life. I had other staffers asking me, “Why are you eating a baloney sandwich? Why are you wearing Nikes? Why do you bank at Bank of America? Why are you calling people ‘fags’ and ‘retards’?” It made me stop and think about all this stuff that I had never given a second thought to before. It was the beginning of my “awakening.” I started questioning, and examining more closely, what I ate, what I wore, what businesses I patronized, and most importantly, how I treated other people.

MRR was certainly a life-changer for me. I was exposed to the positive, constructive, do-it-yourself side of punk and met so many great people from all over the world. Through MRR I learned how to be a radio DJ (MRR Radio and KALX Berkeley), how to do a magazine, how to set up and run a club/community center (924 Gilman), how to run a small business (Blacklist Mailorder), and how to put out a book (924 Gilman – The Story So Far). And perhaps the greatest thing I learned was how to stand up and fight for what I believed in. Many of the ideas and values learned from working with MRR for over 20 years stay with me to this day: Life doesn’t have to be competitive, it can be cooperative. You don’t have to be a greedy, selfish asshole to “succeed.” And by treating people with respect, equality, and an open mind you can have a much more rewarding life.

I feel very fortunate to have known not only Tim Yohannan, who provided me with so much guidance and inspiration, but also many of the other hard-working folks who have contributed, both past and present, to this epic adventure called Maximum RocknRoll .

— Brian Edge

PDF download of MRR #4 HERE. Click here to find more of our MRR Archive downloads. We’ve done our best to clean up theses scans while keeping the “newsprint” look, and to keep the file size small while still being readable. If you have any trouble downloading or reading this file, please contact webzine {at} maximumrocknroll(.)com.

If you appreciate these free downloads, please consider donating a small amount — however much you think it’s worth — to help us pay some bills around here. Thanks… and enjoy!

July 24th, 2012 by MRR Web Coordinator
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : 30th Anniversary, From the Vaults, MRR Archive

The MRR archives unleashed!
MRR #1 — 30 years ago today…

3 07 2012

Can you believe Maximum Rocknroll magazine is 30 years old? Now that we can no longer be trusted, we’re finally free to toot our own horn, wallow in the past, and shake our fists at you damn kids! This month we’re commemorating our birthday with a 30th anniversary issue, a special radio show celebrating not only the magazine but 35 years of MRR Radio and 10 years of podcasting, and not last, and certainly not least, we are rolling out downloads of our MRR magazine archives!*

We’ll be posting the first two years of MRR magazine this month, and each post will have a special intro by an original Maximum Rocknroll shitworker. No one could have been a better choice to introduce this first issue — MRR #1, published in July 1982 — than Jumpin’ Jeff Bale himself!

So keep us bookmarked, subscribe to our blog (on the right) and download to your heart’s delight. And now, stay tuned for Tim and the Gang…

Click cover to download Maximum Rocknroll issue #1!

When Paul Curran asked me to write a few words about the origins and early days of MRR for the magazine’s 30th Anniversary, I was originally at a loss for words. After all, the events in question took place thirty years ago, and I honestly cannot recall most of the details about the early founding of MRR. Moreover, since then there has been a lot of water under the bridge — some of it rather toxic — in terms of infighting within the punk underground. I can’t do much about the faulty memory part, all the more so given our not infrequent use of alcohol and drugs back then. But all of the bitter infighting that later developed seems, in retrospect, like little more than a tempest in a teapot. It’s the kind of thing that all too often happens within relatively small, insular subcultural and countercultural milieus, and it always seems to reach a fever pitch in direct proportion to the inability of those milieus to grow, flourish, and, ultimately, transform the wider culture. Since I no longer care or have any hard feelings about this, and haven’t even perused a copy of the magazine for more than ten years, I happily agreed to make a small contribution to MRR’s anniversary issue.

If anyone had suggested to the people who originally founded MRR — Tim Yo, myself, Ruth Schwartz, Jello Biafra, Mickey Creep (who was then Jello’s roommate), red-haired Mark and his girlfriend — that the magazine we were envisioning, however fuzzily, would continue to be published thirty years hence, we would all have said “no way!” or laughed out loud. If I recall correctly (and I may not be!), one day the idea of putting out a magazine version of the MRR Radio show just sort of popped into Tim’s head. He then consulted with Mickey Creep, who was then publishing Creep magazine, about the mechanics and logistics of putting out such a magazine, and then organized a few preliminary meetings to discuss the launching of MRR. Given Tim’s dedication and organizational skills, this idea soon became a reality. After a couple of issues, Mickey and Mark moved on to other projects, and Jello was too busy to perform any day-to-day tasks related to the zine. Tim, being a workaholic, did the lion’s share of the “shit work,” even after he had recruited numerous young volunteers to work on the zine, whereas my primary task was to edit the record review section, do reviews myself, and write some other things I felt inclined to write.

The primary goals of the magazine were to provide coverage of burgeoning punk scenes worldwide, to link punk scenes and scenesters together, to promote an anti-Establishment ethos, and to review every single punk record release. Although we were all caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, were upset about the election of Ronald Reagan, and hoped that punk would somehow develop into a more influential culture of opposition, it was never our intention to manipulate or “recruit” young people within the punk underground. Even Tim, who had Maoist sympathies, did not view the MRR staff as some sort of a Leninist “vanguard party” that was designed to mobilize “the masses” for revolution, contrary to the absurd charges of some of our critics. We simply wanted to create a fun, exciting vehicle with which to promote our own ideas and musical tastes, and by extension to stimulate the growth and connectivity of the international punk counterculture. Tim, Jello, and I, in particular, had been obsessive, long-standing lovers and collectors of primitive rock’n’roll for decades, and despite all of its other aspects (some of which, even certain things I wrote, I now regard as cringeworthy), MRR was from the very outset primarily a labor of love by fans who were on a self-appointed mission to promote the best underground r’n’r, which at that juncture was punk. Anyone who claims otherwise is talking nonsense.

From the very beginning, Tim and I agreed that the record reviews in MRR should be short and concise. This was mainly because we did not want to emulate other music magazines, most of which featured long and often pretentious record reviews that usually revealed more about the authors’ narcissistic personalities than about the records being reviewed. This turned out to be a very wise decision, given the enormous and ever-increasing volume of punk records that were sent to MRR for review. It soon became almost unmanageable to review all of them even using our very short review format — it would have been utterly impossible had we opted for a longer review format.

It frankly amazes me that MRR has not only survived the departure of so many of its founders and core staff, but also the tragic death of Tim himself. That is not only a tribute to Tim’s extraordinary organizational abilities, but also to the fact that the magazine managed to inspire so much support and devotion (and an equal amount of hostility and hatred) amongst its readers. One should keep in mind that both love and hatred are emotions that can only be evoked by something that is regarded as very important by the lovers and haters, since one does not feel such strong emotions about objects that are regarded as trivial or unimportant. So here we are, thirty years later, and MRR still comes out like clockwork and, apparently, is still avidly read by certain segments within the punk scene. That is simply amazing!

If I have any retrospective regrets about the early days of MRR, it would be that at the time I was in a phase of my life in which a) I was espousing absurdly simplistic left-wing politics, and b) I was enamored of thrash-style (“hardcore”) punk. In short, when my politics were at their dopiest and when my musical taste was at its nadir.

On the matter of politics, for most of my life I have hated authoritarianism (and, worse still, totalitarianism) and been very contrarian, individualistic, and bitterly opposed to sectarian political “lines” of any kind. And like Mykel Board, I also love to play devil’s advocate and piss people off. (I’ve even manged to piss off Mykel a few times.) However, on two occasions — the first in the wake of the “police riot” at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the second when I first moved out to the Bay Area from the Midwest to attend graduate school at UC Berkeley, which coincided with the election of Reagan — I temporarily lost my senses, got caught up in the moment, and adopted simple-minded political views. We all go through various embarrassing phases in our lives, and this was one of those times. Within a few years I came to my senses and reverted to normal — being nauseated by the left, by the right, and by the center — for which “sins” I was accused by all sides of being in the “enemy” camp. So be it. If narrow-minded political fanatics on all sides of the spectrum don’t like you, you must be doing something right.

[Speaking of politics, the state of America is nowadays far worse than it was during the Reagan era. Indeed, compared to the collection of dim bulbs (à la Palin and Rick Perry), regressive Christian right activists, pseudo-populist Tea Partiers, and “free market fundamentalists” who now dominate the Republican Party, Reagan was a veritable voice of sanity (who even believed — shock!, horror! — that the rich should pay higher taxes), even though he also initiated the deregulation policies that did so much to precipitate the economic mess we are now in. Meanwhile, the ever-increasing corruption of Congress by corporate lobbyists and the lack of effective regulation of the financial sector (thanks mainly to GOP intransigence, but with the acquiescence if not the collusion of all too many Democrats) have turned America into a virtual “banana republic,” in the sense that levels of economic inequality in this country are now approximating that of Third World countries and signs of serious infrastructural and cultural decline are everywhere. If Obama loses the next election, this process of decline will only accelerate. (Not that the Democratic Party is not an integral part of the problem, and the PC left is every bit as odious as ever, if not more so.) In short, given that we are all nowadays confronted by a host of acute structural and political problems, ideological posturing and the adoption of simple-minded politics of any kind — left, right, or centrist — are recipes for disaster. As history has repeatedly demonstrated, it is in times of crisis that the worst sorts of political and religious fanatics tend to come to the fore. Sadly, that is as true with respect to the most sectarian and fanatical segments of the Occupy movement as it is with respect to the most extreme elements of the Tea Party.]

On the matter of music, I embraced super-fast thrash punk for a time, probably because it seemed so extreme and over-the-top, and because it was exhilarating in the same way that the roar of a jet engine is exhilarating. But just like jet noise soon becomes annoying and obnoxious, so too did HC-style punk, at least for me. Hence, unlike the other subgenres of r’n’r that I have always loved — hard-edged British Invasion bands (e.g., the Stones, Yardbirds, Pretty Things, Troggs, Who), ’60s garage punk, rockin’ psychedelia (as opposed to the meandering, noodling, “progressive” type), proto-punk bands (e.g., the Stooges and Dolls), the best glam groups (e.g., Alice Cooper, T-Rex, the Hollywood Brats), mid-tempo ’77-style punk, neo-Mod, and Oi!, “hardcore” simply did not stand the test of time, so much so that I now pretty much detest that subgenre of music (especially its most macho and boneheaded manifestations). Of the thousands of records I currently own, only about ten of them are “hardcore” in terms of musical style (e.g., Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, TSOL, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, 7 Seconds, the Fartz, Terveet Kädet), and I almost never listen to any of them (except the early Black Flag stuff). So I strongly doubt whether I would even like most of the thrash records today that appeared in my Top Ten lists in the earliest issues of MRR. On the contrary, I’d probably be embarrassed to be reminded of what I had recommended back then.

Be that as it may, I once opined in a Hit List column that inveterate, obsessive r’n’r fans such as myself would still be hanging around long after the political activists, pretentious artistes, fashion-conscious phonies, and violent jock-like HC thugs had abandoned the punk scene, and I turned out to be correct. For example, even though I now live quite a ways from San Francisco and even further from Los Angeles, I will still make the trip to see great garage bands in cool underground dives, just as I’ve been doing ever since I was 16 years old — 45 years and over 6,000 gigs ago! With each passing year, I encounter less and less people who I once knew in the punk scene at these gigs. But — along with half a dozen other such fanatics — I’m still going out to see great bands, past and present, and will only stop when I am too physically incapacitated to continue. Sadly, I doubt that this can be said for the overwhelming majority of past MRR staff members and readers, most of whom are much younger than I am. Then again, some of those folks may simply be going to different types of gigs. Like the “hardcore” shows that I now avoid like the plague! Moreover, time permitting, I periodically write a few record reviews for Ugly Things, which in my opinion has been the world’s best r’n’r magazine for decades in terms of its extraordinarily high levels of editor and contributor expertise, factual information, writing panache, musical taste, and enthusiasm for “wild sounds from past dimensions,” including punk from the mid-1970s to the beginning of the 1980s. The lesson here is that inveterate rock’n’rollers never die — they just get older, uglier, and less energetic.

Finally, I’ll sign off now by saying “happy anniversary” to the magazine that I helped to establish three decades ago, even though we have long since parted ways.

—Jeff Bale

*PDF download of MRR #1 HERE. We’ve done our best to clean up theses scans while keeping the “newsprint” look, and to keep the file size small while still being readable. If you have any trouble downloading or reading this file, please contact webzine {at} maximumrocknroll(.)com.

If you appreciate these free downloads, please consider donating a small amount — however much you think it’s worth — to help us pay some bills around here. Thanks… and enjoy!

July 3rd, 2012 by MRR Web Coordinator
Comments : 13 Comments »
Categories : 30th Anniversary, From the Vaults, MRR Archive, MRR magazine

Justine DeMetrick interview: The Director’s Cut!!

19 06 2012

Here’s the complete interview with photographer Justine DeMetrick. The edited version ran in the recent photo issue (MRR #350). If you haven’t picked it up yet, I suggest you do.

The first time I had ever knowingly seen Justine DeMetrick’s work was in Inward Monitor #3. I’m the type of person who does read the photo credits in magazines, and if their work is good, their name sticks with me. Justine’s work really captures the excitement and energy of hardcore punk. I remember looking at the first issue of her zine, Intermission, a year or two later, and being blown away. All the bands that mattered and some that may have never left their home town scene were featured in the pages of that publication, not to mention giving one the sense that the East Coast really had it going on in terms of hardcore shows and scene. If you ever get the opportunity to obtain any of the three issues of Intermission, I highly urge you to get them. Her photos have appeared in a lot of records, from Rorschach, Born Against, Mouthpiece, Better Than A Thousand, and more. Then there’s the countless zines her photos appeared in. If you are truly into hardcore punk you have definitely seen her work. A little background; Justine had spent time working in the darkroom since age 4, but started taking photos at shows around 1987/88. Some of the early photos were of Verbal Assault, Agnostic Front, SNFU, Underdog, Scream, Youth Of Today. Slap Shot, Wrecking Crew, Murphy’s Law, and more. She went to the School of Visual Arts, International Center of Photography, and School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and majored in photography. All this experience comes through in her work. This interview was conducted somewhere in the middle of a four hour conversation.

Interview by Matt Average. Photos by Justine DeMetrick. 

Citizen’s Arrest final show at ABC No Rio. (photo by Justine DeMetrick)

MRR: So why did you pick up the camera instead of starting a fanzine, or something more glamorous like a band?
I’m completely tone deaf. I have a terrible voice. I’ve been told I’m the whitest person that my friends have ever met because I can’t keep a beat to save my life. Also, I don’t like being the center of attention. I have no confidence. So to be up in front of people, I would never have enough guts to do that. By that point the camera was an extension of my being anyway

MRR: When you were photographing bands, were you just documenting, or was it like, “I like these bands, so I shoot these bands only”?
No. I wonder about that. I guess what we were involved in was a movement. The same way the whole ’60s Hippie thing, or the Beat thing was a movement. But you don’t realize you’re in a defined “movement” until you’re a lot of older. So it never occurred to me to document what was around me. It just was. I wish I took more pictures of things going on. I never thought of it being any more important because this is what I did. This is what I ate, slept, this is my friends. Everything I did had something to do with the community of punk and hardcore. My camera was there, and I just photographed whatever band was on stage. A lot of times, if I really really really like a band… I saw Bad Brains many times, when they were good, I never photographed them. So many bands out there that I loved… I could have shot the Circle Jerks a bunch of times, but I didn’t. Like TSOL. All these bands; they were like my favorite bands. I’m not going to stand behind the camera, I want to be in the pit, I want to be wherever and hanging out with my friends. Since you have the camera in your hand you’re on stage. You can’t hear music, you can’t hear the vocals. You don’t really hear the music. It’s a totally different experience.

MRR: My experience with photographing bands is I’m not really paying attention to the music anymore. I’m just watching the movement.
Totally. I kept doing it. It became a habit, I didn’t know what else to do. Other than now, here I am at 42 years old, if I go see the Subhumans play, I have no interest in photographing them. I can finally be in the crowd and be okay being on the side of the crowd. Back then, to not have a camera in my hand I might as well be amputated. I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

When you’re shooting, you’re paying attention to the composition, what people are doing, and you’re trying to get the best shot you can. So that is where your interest and emphasis lies. Not necessarily in the sound. When I would photograph bands I always had two eyes open while I photographed. I would compose the shot, of say the bass player is in the forefront, drummer in the background, at some point the music when the change in the music occurs he’s going to jump – I want the shot of him over the drummer. While waiting for this to happen, I’d keep an eye on the vocalist and the others knowing “Okay during this part of the song, the guitar player always goes nuts during this mosh part”. So what I would do is compose my shot on the right, and I would watch the guy across the stage, I would wait for the change, when it was about to happen, I’d twist to snap that image then snap back into position for my bass player over the drummer shot. I was always listening to changes in the music, and seeing how each musician would act during different songs. So it’s hard listening to music, but that’s what I would end up listening to without actually listening to it for a point of enjoyment.

MRR: I would watch the crowd too.
All the time. When I ended up with a bigger camera system Nikon F4 I had to be careful because the chord that connected to the flash was $50, and in 1991 that was pretty expensive. So if a kid hit my camera I’m out a lot of money. So where the flash arm attached to the camera had a spike would come off, and I could hit somebody with the spike. I had really weak arms, but I had strong legs. So I spent a lot of time kicking people off as I’m shooting. Actually, Pat West has sent me more than my desired share of photos of me kicking some kid in the head with an angry face! Pretty embarrassing! [laughter] That’s Pat’s specialty. He goes out of his way to take pictures of you when you look your worst. When shows were in the later part of the 90s, I could care less about most of the bands. A lot of people, all they wanted to do was be on stage. So there was certain bands, like when Ray Cappo did Better Than A Thousand. They had me shoot their first show at the Safari Club. I actually had to say, “I will shoot this, but you need somebody to keep people off of me”. Because there was just no way. It was getting so crazy and so hectic. I was getting older and I couldn’t physically keep people off me at that point. I was shooting with a Nikon F4 system, and that was a couple thousand dollars. I couldn’t loose the camera. That camera cost me a fortune that I didn’t have. So I would have to have people for a number of years, like Geoff D’Agostino and Dan Hornecker, they were fantastic. They knew enough how to stay out of my way and out of the shots, and they were great. If people started crowding me they could clear people off with just one stroke. That made it easier.

MRR: Were there any photographers around that you consider an influence? 
I didn’t know any other photographers. In Rhode Island there was one girl, I never heard her speak, but she sat there in front of every single band. She always had a plaid shirt on, and I remember her all through the ’80s. She just had a simple point-and-shoot, and she photographed everybody. I have no idea who she was. I don’t know if her stuff ever got published. But she just sat there and photographed everything. She has to be in her 50s at this point. I have no idea who she was, and I never saw her work.

Other photographers… Murray Bowles shot everything, but his work didn’t inspire me. The stuff that inspired me were people like Cornell Capa, and Cartier-Bresson, Mary Ellen Mark. There’s a lot of real photographers that inspired me. I think that one of the most influential photos that made me think of bands, and that inspired me, and one was a picture (photographed Stanley J. Forman), that Infest used on their seven inch, of the Boston Riots, where the guy picks up the American flag and is about the stab the black guy in the suit. It captured that moment. I saw the footage on PBS a number of years ago, and the live footage does not nearly have the impact as that photograph. The other one was Cornell Capa. During the Spanish-American War, there’s a photograph of this soldier on top of the hill the moment he was killed. He’s wearing a white shirt, the khakis, and he’s sort of flailing backwards, and the rifle’s falling out of his hand, and you can see part of his skull popping off. It’s a really gruff brutal image. The negative is a mess. It’s slightly blurry… The ability to just capture that moment and say it all in that moment, that to me was a bigger influence than a band photographer.

Do you feel like you captured that moment in your shots?
I can’t think of any at the moment, off hand. I’m sure if I think of it, I’ll get it. There was two images. One was that band Full Speed Ahead, from New Jersey. Their last show in New Brunswick, was one of my favorite shows to shoot. It was amazing! They started destroying their instruments, there was some kid wearing a Ronald Reagan mask, and the energy… They were a band that just kicked ass. They were just amazing. They were a bunch of old school guys that got together and started doing this band. It was amazing, and the energy and everything. I got it. There are certain photos over the years, definitely. But the other one that I really liked that I shot was of Rollins. It was at Maxwell’s. It was actually when I finally realized there were certain techniques that I picked up alone, over the years, that it didn’t seem like anybody else ever did. There was a show at Maxwell’s, and Rollins, when he sings he sings with what I think is his left hand, and he turns his entire body to the right, so if you’re on the left side of him, if you’re facing the stage, and you’re on the right, so you’re looking at his left side, you’re not going to get any other photos but the side of his head and his biceps. So every picture looks the same, it sucks. So that’s when I learned to find out if the singer is left handed or right handed [laughter]. So anyway, the only good shot I got that night, was at some point in the show the lights were low and he’s just lying on the ground just completely drained. That was actually the back cover on one of my zines (Intermission). That totally summed up what early Rollins shows were like.

MRR: I’m looking at the photo right now, and it’s Intermission #1, he’s near the drum kit, and the mic is out of his hand. 
After seeing him a few times that (photo) totally captured what he looked like when he was on it. The way he was in spoken word and live were two different things. He definitely looked like, whether it was for effect, what was real, or bullshit, I don’t know. But he definitely put in an enormous amount of mental energy into whatever he was doing.There were shots of (Nation of) Ulysses that I really liked. They were a great band to shoot because they were so physically active, and each member had their own persona. There were a lot of bands from the 90s that I liked shooting. Not all of them I liked musically, but were fun to shoot.

Who was your favorite to shoot? 
Well, I don’t know. Off hand, I do not know. It depends. The second half of the 90s I could give two shits about ninety percent of the music coming out. At that point it was just a game; let me see how many combinations of shots can I get, how many good ones can I get on one roll of film. For me, it was just a pure challenge of what I can get compositionally, what I can I do, what can I push my self to do? At some point I had my own issues with severe depression, so I didn’t really give a shit what anybody said or thought. Which gave me a little more confidence to be where the hell I want, to get what I want out of it, and to get the shot that I want. Then at that point it wasn’t a particular band, but there were certain types of bands that were fun to shoot. Especially when the revival of these people trying to do earlier style hardcore, like 97A, or one of those bands. They had an enormous amount of energy. Resurrection, 108; Rob Fish’s bands were really fun to shoot.

What was it about the late 90s band that you didn’t care about? Was it the time period, or the style of music?
A lot of the music seemed a little more forced. None of these bands sang about anything that really mean anything to me. It didn’t have the same rawness. A lot of it seemed a little more manufactured. It started getting really cliquey again. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like all the ass kissing; “Oh you talk to this person. You don’t wear the right sneakers”. All this sort of horse shit. It was also being a lot older than a lot of the people. I think if you live in a immediate city like New York, or San Francisco, there’s a lot of people within your age range. But once you get into the suburbs there’s not a lot of people in your age range anymore. But yeah, I don’t think the music was good. People weren’t taking chances, it lost its rawness, it spread out. It was just weak! [laughter]

What was the first published photo of yours? 
It was either in an issue of Constant Change fanzine, a fanzine that Jon Reed did, Inward Monitor, maybe. But I think it was Constant Change, or it would be the Underdog or Upper Cut record. That happened because Brian Simmons, who was my roommate at the time in Newport (RI), he was sending people pictures and not telling me. [laughter] I was absolutely furious! In the long run it was the nicest thing anybody could do.

MRR: When you saw your photo in the Underdog record, were you actually stoked to see your work published?
I think I was really scared and embarrassed [laughter]. That Underdog demo and that seven inch was amazing! It was one of my favorite seven inches. They were awesome live. I loved seeing them. So part me thought it was so awesome, but then part of me felt really weird because now my name is in print. Not that anybody ever reads it, because who gives a shit. It was just my own depression and fear coming out. My own self-confidence issues.

Cro-Mags (photo by Justine DeMetrick)

MRR: If you weren’t depressed would you have even gravitated towards punk rock? I feel like people who are not depressed or angry, punk rock should have no appeal to them whatsoever. 
Well, the depression I’ve had since I was a child. If anything, punk and hardcore saved my life. For the first time in my life I met people who were similar to me. What was wonderful, especially in Rhode Island, is so many people that were involved in the scene were involved in some form of the arts. I met a lot of people that were musicians, and writers, and artists, and intellectuals, and that sort of stuff. I remember going to a show early on and looking around, it was a Circle Jerks show, and where most people would be kind of freaked out, I felt like I was at home. I was ecstatic, like, “Oh my god, I’m not the only one!” [laughter]. It was awesome! So in a lot of ways it allowed me to actually have friends, people didn’t think I was weird. People, for the first time, actually liked me. They thought it was cool that I was artistic. I dressed weird on my own, I didn’t need punk to do that! [laughter] Like, “Hey mom, can you make me a plastic skirt?” Most kids don’t say that. [laughter]

MRR: What was your first exposure to punk? 
I would hear it on the radio, but I didn’t know what I was listening to. I loved, like, Missing Persons, and Devo, and Joy Divsion, New Order… New Wave stuff, Kraftwerk. I loved all that sort of stuff, late elementary school, junior high. But there were two radio stations, Uconn in Connecticut, and one that, I think, was Dartmouth out of Massachusetts. They would have these shows, and I didn’t know what I was listening to, all I know is that on Sundays and another day, this music would come on and I liked it. I would hold up a cassette recorder and I would tape the songs. If I liked the song I kept it going. If I didn’t like it I would rewind it and wait for the next song and hit record. I had no idea exactly what I was listening to until I got older and met other people who knew what it was. Actually, when I was at Rocky Hill there were these two kids, one that always had a New Model Army shirt on, and we became friends, and that’s how I ended up finding about other bands. Then I had a neighbor I hadn’t seen in years. I had part of my head shaved, and he had a mohawk and he had an older sister, and was allowed to go to shows. So my mom said, “Yeah, whatever band is coming up you can go to a show with Dan and Daphne.” That allowed me greater access. I was transferred to a private school from a public school, and meeting other kids who were skaters and punk helped.

MRR: Going back to photography, what was the best venue to shoot at, in your opinion?
That’s a hard one. I did always like shooting at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey. That was really good. I can tell you what sucks. That would be the Wetlands in New York City, and CBGB’s can totally suck, because of the layout. Lupos in Providence was really good. The Rat in Boston, that was a good one to shoot at. The smaller the club was, it was usually easier to shoot because everybody was sort of on top of one another, and packed with energy. I would shoot with a 24mm, as opposed to a fish eye, or a 28mm. It keeps the proportions, it’s pretty close to what a normal eye sees, and it’s just wide enough to get full bodies of people in without distortion. You increase your ability to get a wider range of shots with it. The bigger the stage the worst the images would look. I started shooting more, and would shoot at places like the Roseland in New York I really started to hate band photography and I didn’t want to go to the next level. I began to realize why all those pictures in Creem magazine, or Rolling Stone sucked. All the band members are twenty-five feet apart, and you have to use a telephoto lens. So every shot is a portrait style with a limited depth of field, and you get the waist on up, and that’s it.

MRR: What are the elements required for a great photo? 
Composition.

MRR: What about lighting? I was always told lighting is everything. Read the rest of this entry »

June 19th, 2012 by Matt Average
Comments : 1 Comment »
Categories : MRR magazine, Photos

Top Tens from MRR #348 • May 2012

19 04 2012

Fuck yes! Every month, a couple weeks after the magazine comes out, we post our reviewers’ monthly top tens from the latest issue of Maximum Rocknroll. This one’s from MRR #348, the May 2012 issue. See you fucks in hell!

Mariam Bastani

Mariam Bastani
WALLS-The Future Is Wide Open-LP
SLICES-Still Cruising-LP
OMEGAS-NY Terminator-EP
RATFACE-Ratfaced-EP / CURTAINS-LP
CARCINOGENZ-Die-EP / POMPOIR-LP
SHOCK FUTURO-Ruido Destructivo-EP
LEBAKKO-Standardit/Laulu Viimeisistä Rahoistani-45
VOM-Live at Surf City-EP
V/A-New Breed Tape Compilation-2xLP
KONTAMINAT/DIVINE RIGHT/RATFACE-live

Mitch Cardwell

Mitch Cardwell
FRIENDS OF DOROTHY-No Sex on Paul Fashion Street-EP
JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN-The Last Donkey Show-LP
THE SKUNKS-Can’t Get Loose/Earthquake Shake-45
VOM-Live At Surf City-EP
SECRET PROSTITUTES-The Kenrock 7 Inch-EP
MENTALLY ILL-Gacy’s Place-EP
ELVIS CHRIST-Rock & Roll Savior/Wild at Heart-45
PROTOMARTYR-Dreads 85 84-EP
DROSOFILE-Mal/Your Roberts-45
THE PETS-live

Robert Collins

Robert Collins
CULTURE KIDS-LP
WALLS-LP / TRUE RADICAL MIRACLE-LP
SLICES-Still Cruising-LP
CURTAINS-LP / FUK-LP
MDK-flexi / POLICEBASTARD-EP
VAASKA-Condenado-EP
ATROCITY EXHIBITION-Shadows Walk Ahead-45
LOS CULITOS-Un Año Sin Verte-EP
RATFACE-Ratfaced-EP
TERRIBLE TRUTHS-Patterns-EP

Dougie!

Sean “Dougie” Dougan
THE IMPOSTERS-Animal Magnetism-LP
THE RIOTS-Dance On Your Problems-EP
JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN-The Last Donkey Show-LP
DEAD GERMAN-Vicious Repent-LP
KING LOLLIPOP-Woodland Whoopie Songs…-LP
VANNA INGET-Allvar-LP
BRAUSEPOTER-Komplett 1979-1991-CD
BLANK PAGES-Unseen-EP
THE SKUNKS-Can’t Get Loose/Earthquake Shake-45
NIGHT BEATS-live

Layla G

Layla Gibbon
DARK TIMES-Shallow Breather-EP
OMEGAS-NY Terminator-EP
CULTURE KIDS-LP / TERRIBLE TRUTHS-EP
PANZRAM/SHOPPERS-split EP
SLICES-Still Cruising-LP / POMPOIR-LP
WALLS-LP / POMPOIR-LP
LEBAKKO-45 / LIGHT BRIGADE-EP
CURTAINS-Deep in the Night City-LP
MENTALLY ILL-EP / BRAUSEPÖTER-CD
CRUDE THOUGHT-demo tape

Dan Goetz

Dan Goetz
V/A-New Breed Tape Compilation-2xLP
WALLS-The Future Is Wide Open-LP
SLICES-LP / AGATHA-LP
GIVE-Petal Pushing-45
CULTURE KIDS-LP
HOST-There’s Nothing Up There but Heavy Clouds-EP
IMPOSTERS-Animal Magnetism-LP
MERCILESS GAME- Genjitsu Wo Kutabare-8”
CULO/TENEMENT-split-EP
CAPTIVE BOLT-EP / CRIMSON SCARLET-live

Greg Harvester

Greg Harvester
FROZEN TEENS-LP
LIGHT BRIGADE-Breaking Glass-EP
CULTURE KIDS-LP
FULL SUN-both demos
NO MORE ART-demo
KOHOSH-Survival Guide-LP
LEBAKKO-Standardit/Laulu Viimeisistä Rahoistani-45
AGATHA-LP
WHORE PAINT-Second Shift-EP
SIREN SONGS-live at 4 am

Kenny Kaos
MURDER-Fuckpunk-LP
THE MAXINES-Drugstore-EP
POPPETS-The Long Highway/Heaven Only Knows-45
PROTOMARTYR-Dreads 85 84-EP
FRIENDS OF DOROTHY-No Sex on Paul Fashion Street-EP
STEAKNIVES-Against You/Victims-45
L’ASSASSINS-7pm Go!/Backseat Bomp-45
THE LARCHMONT TRASH-I Spent the Summer With…-10”
THE DREAM DATES-Surfer Joe/Tallahassee Lassie-45
RIOTS-both 45s

Carolyn Keddy
CARCINOGENZ-Die-EP
BAD DADDIES/WHITE FANG-split-EP
COWBONES-To Speed Shock Spoken-CD
DROSOFILE-Mal/Your Roberts-45
POPPETS-The Long Highway/Heaven Only Knows-45
CHROME CRANKS -Ain’t No Lies in Blood-CD
LOS CULITOS-Un Año Sin Verte-EP
TERRIBLE TRUTHS-Patterns-EP
THE MENTALLY ILL-Gacy’s Place-EP
THE SKUNKS-45 / VOM-Live at Surf City-EP

Sam Lefebvre – NEW TOP TENNER!!!
VOM-Live at Surf City-EP
PANZRAM/SHOPPERS-split EP
MENTALLY ILL-Gacy’s Place-EP
TERRIBLE TRUTHS-Patterns-EP
CÜLO / TENEMENT-split EP
SECRET POLICE-They’re Everywhere-EP
DARK TIMES-Shallow Breather-EP
CULTURE KIDS-LP
SHEARING PINX-Night Danger-LP
THE SKUNKS-Can’t Get Loose/Earthquake Shake-45

Ray Lujan
BOILERMAN-EP / COME TO GET HER-CD
THE CRY-CD / EMPIRE-Volume II-CD
GLOW KIT-LP / LATTERMAN-45
LONG TALL SHORTY-LP / MENZINGERS-45
PLAIN DEALERS-EP / THE RIOTS-EP
TENEMENT-The Blind Wink-LP
WHORE PAINT-Menarchy-EP
PETER AND THE TEST TUBE BABIES-live
GUITAR GANGSTERS/NÜ SENSAE-live
COCK SPARRER/YOUNG OFFENDERS-live

Marissa Magic

Marissa Magic
CRUDE THOUGHT-demo tape
VOM-Live at Surf City-EP
CULTURE KIDS-LP
PANZRAM/SHOPPERS-split EP
SHEARING PINX-LP
SEDIMENT CLUB-Time Decay Now-LP
MONGST-Decolonisation-LP
HOST-There’s Nothing Up There but Heavy Clouds-EP
DARK TIMES-Shallow Breather-EP
ESG-live

Kevin Manion – NEW TOP TENNER!!!
VANNA INGET-Allvar-LP
RATFACE-Ratfaced-EP
SECRET PROSTITUTES-The Kenrock 7 Inch-EP
CONFRONT-The Curtain of an Intense Attack-EP
SLICES-Still Cruising-LP
CULTURE KIDS-LP
WHORE PAINT-Menarchy-EP
DARK TIMES-Shallow Breather-EP
BLANK PAGES-Unseen-EP
VIVID SEKT-Dance Among the Debris-LP

Martin Sorrondeguy(!)

Martin Sorrondeguy
CULTURE KIDS-LP
SECRET POLICE-They’re Everywhere-EP
VAASKA-Condenado-EP
SHOCK FUTURO-Ruido Destructivo-EP
OMEGAS-NY Terminator-EP
PKDORES/LOS ESKELETOS-split EP
SIDETRACKED-Forfeit-EP
BLANK PAGES-Unseen-EP
CARCINOGENZ-Die-EP
PUSRAD-Smartramz-EP

Top Ten Zines
Rot #3
Start Your Own Haunted House
Seven Sexual Things That Everyone Failed to Mention
Kill Your Parents’ Garden #4
National Handbag #1 & 1.5
Doris #29
Criminal Behavior/Sloppy Noise
Stitches in My Head #2
Trainwreck #9

April 19th, 2012 by MRR Web Coordinator
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Top Tens

Please help out Sarah Kirsch (formerly known as Mike Kirsch)

5 04 2012

THE POST BELOW IS NO LONGER CURRENT. PLEASE READ THIS POST FOR THE MOST RECENT NEWS ABOUT SARAH KIRSCH

Please help a dear friend, Sarah Kirsch, an important figure and driving force in the ’90s Bay Area punk scene and beyond. She continues to be an important part of our community, our culture, our music scene, and many of our lives.

Even if you don’t recognize this name, you probably know Sarah. She has been a huge part of the punk/radical community for decades as Mike Kirsch (Fuel, Sawhorse, Pinhead Gunpowder, John Henry West, Torches To Rome, Bread And Circuits, Please Inform The Captain This Is A Hijack, Baader Brains, Mothercountry Motherfuckers, etc.). She not too long ago came out as a proud trans-woman, and almost immediately was confronted with these terrible health problems.  Money is badly needed.

Details:

Our good friend Sarah Kirsch was diagnosed over summer with Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disorder that causes leukemia and other cancers. Despite being put through the f’n ringer by chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and very long hospital stays, Sarah is staying strong and fighting hard, finally out of the hospital and at home with her amazing partner Jess and loving full-time caregivers and friends, Paul and Ilya.



Aside from the unconditional emotional and physical support Sarah has received from her devoted extended family and friends, donations to date have been enormously helpful in lightening the financial burden of this kind of illness. The demand for supplies not covered by insurance is, however, unending and deepening — from food to cleaning supplies to lotion to kleenex to parking at the hospital… and this is to say nothing of larger caregiving expenses.

It is all adding up and multiple life savings have already been depleted. 

If you’re able and would like to contribute in this way, please check out our WePay account below. There is no donation too small, every $ helps.



https://www.wepay.com/donations/sarah

 

***An Important Update and Appeal for Sarah (September 5, 2012) ***

Dear Friends and Family,

We cannot adequately express how grateful we are for the support you have given us through this impossible time. Sarah’s health and spirits have strengthened so much thanks to the emotional and financial support she has received from the community in recent months. We could not have made it this far without you.

Unfortunately, the progression of Sarah’s rare and complicated illness has not followed an ideal path. Her bone marrow—wherein resides Fanconi Anemia, the disease that put her in the hospital and that she continues to fight—has begun to gradually come back, meaning that her body cannot produce blood cells as it should. Although it has only regained 3% of her body’s marrow, according to recent preliminary test results, as compared to 97% percent post-transplant marrow, this small amount is sufficient to cause concern amongst her medical team that more must be done before the transplant can really take effect.

In short, unfortunately, Sarah must now undergo more chemotherapy in the coming months. This chemo will be aimed at suppressing the diseased marrow and allowing the healthy, transplanted marrow to fully take over.

Chemotherapy has always been quite difficult for Sarah, and now seems to be an especially unideal time to undergo such a devastating procedure. Sarah had been starting to gradually return to a more normal routine of life—going outside, spending time alone, even driving and playing some music—and a regimen of chemotherapy means an unwelcome regression to where we were many months ago, when Sarah couldn’t go out to public places or eat at her favorite vegan spots due to her body’s inability to combat infection and the general toll of chemotherapy.

We are reaching out to the community with another call for financial support—for rent, groceries, gas, money to pay for care-giving assistance, co-pays for hospital visits, cleaning supplies, emergency funds, etc. All of these things add up very quickly and make an already impossible situation that much more difficult. Any support you can offer is extremely appreciated and no donation is too small.

The link again: https://www.wepay.com/donations/sarah

Again, Sarah and those close to her are SO THANKFUL for the support that has already come our way. Though all of us (and especially Sarah for the time-being and likely for a significant time to come) can’t reach out to all of you individually who have shown support in so many ways, it is truly inspiring and incredible to receive support and read the messages that so many people have to offer us. Please accept this general THANK YOU and know that you have contributed in a great way to sustain all of us in this time of extreme need.

Love,
Sarah’s Friends and Caregiving Team

 


*UPDATE 5/1/12* (a more recent update appears above the video)

From Sarah’s Support Team:

Wow! It’s almost unbelievable how many people have come out of the woodwork to support Sarah. Our heartfelt thanks to MRR for putting the word out more broadly, as well as to each and every one of you who has given to Sarah’s cause. From the largest donations to the smallest, to even those of you who have just been able to send along much needed and appreciated words of support, you truly don’t know how much this means to Sarah, her family and our caregiving team of friends.

We’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Sarah’s parents, who have been supporting us and her in a tremendous way. Parental help is often taken for granted, so we want to make sure everyone knows how invaluable their assistance has been.

Sarah’s situation is gradually improving, but it’s going to remain a difficult road to recovery, and we’re not out of the woods by a long shot (just over half way through the dreaded 100-day home lockdown for starters). She has just started to do things like take a nightly walk outside, and is even spending some time working on record artwork and starting to play a few notes on her synthesizers and guitar.

The best news has been that preliminary blood tests have shown that the transplant has taken 100%, although a more invasive bone marrow biopsy is required to know for certain.

Unfortunately, though, Sarah still has precious little energy (even on good days), and though she wishes she could write or call many of you to express her thanks and talk to you individually at length, the enormity of fully resuming any kind of contact with anyone beyond the people who are here caring for her is still very daunting.

But to everyone who has been showing support in ways large and small, Sarah says (transcribed by us): “Thanks to everyone — old friends and people I don’t even know… It’s inspiring to see how the community can come together to help someone in need. I wish I could contact everyone individually, people that gave financially or not, but being on so many medications makes it really hard to do anything – like even typing an email is so hard. I apologize to people who I haven’t been able to thank and I want them to know that I’m thinking about them and that all their support gives me strength.”

It’s very hard for us to write an update like this and not be able to enthusiastically report that “We’ve reached our goal!” or anywhere near close, but rather TO RENEW OUR APPEAL at the same time as we give thanks. The reality of the situation is that we are still burning through money like it grows on trees.

Despite all the very VERY generous help of friends, family and others, life savings have been depleted or are still dwindling and budgets are being stretched beyond anything we could have imagined.

If you’ve already given what you can (again, THANK YOU!), maybe pass the word to other friends or help organize a fund raiser. Here is the URL to this post, which is an easy link to send around for context: http://maximumrocknroll.com/help-sarah-kirsch/

Benefit shows are already in the works, from the Bay Area to the East Coast to even Amsterdam (last LÄRM gig, May 26th!) and Japan, and multiple people have offered to organize or contribute to auctions of many sorts. So thanks again so much to all of you for taking some initiative or just sending good vibes.

LET’S KEEP ON HELPING SARAH MAKE IT THROUGH THIS!!

April 5th, 2012 by MRR Web Coordinator
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : News

Record of the Week: RVIVR The Joester Sessions ’08–’11 LP

3 04 2012

To start with, it should be noted that, this record rules. No, “rules” is an understatement. It destroys, it’s magic and it sets the world on fire. RVIVR is one of one best pop-punk bands of the decade. It’s hard to recommend a band more strongly. Lately it feels like they have been turning off a lot of people because they are so outspoken about their politics. Political and social consciousness plays a central role in their music, and their shows. Which is kind of a like a mosquito buzzing around the face for all the folks who are just there to dance and party ’cause the music is kind of feel-good party music, but the lyrics have substance. And when I say “outspoken” I mean “viciously outspoken.” But their messages are always totally right on, they honestly demand our attention. There are lots of records that come out every month that are good, but rarely is there one that’s important. This record is important. And it’s not that the songs are just really good, or just that the message is significant. It’s that they are both happening in unison while recreating everything you like about pop-punk into something new and exciting. Anyway, as the title implies, this is a compilation of all their earlier recordings. On this record they have compiled both sold out 7″s and a 12″ EP only released in Europe. This is the best place to start if you’re discovering the band for the first time, but will be nothing new to folks who have followed this band for the last few years—except for the cover of “Elizabethan Collar” which doesn’t appear anywhere else. Totally awesome, totally essential. (FS)
(Rumbletowne)

April 3rd, 2012 by Fred
Comments : 2 Comments »
Categories : Record of the Week, Record Reviews

From the Vaults: Keine Experimente! Vol.II comp LP

2 03 2012

Alright, this week our From the Vaults feature is back with a vengeance! Today shitworker Matt Badenhop digs out a treasure from the Maximum record library for his debut blog on MRR.com. Take it  away, Matt!…

Compilations can be mixed bags — hot and cold — sometimes containing a few good songs accompanied by a bunch of throwaway tracks. Another pitfall for comps is when some or most of the songs are just pulled from bands’ releases. This can be helpful to draw you to seek out the bands’ material, but then maybe the compilation isn’t as special anymore. At least this is how I’ve felt about some punk comps in the past. With so much focus and fetishizing of punk and hardcore from places like Japan, Sweden, and Finland, I thought it would be fun to point out this unappreciated classic featuring some of Germany’s finest from 1984.

Keine Experimente! Vol.II (Weird System Records) transcends the aforementioned compilation trappings, featuring 100 percent “all killer no filler” material exclusive to this comp (well, at the time they were exclusive—some of these songs have appeared on some of the bands’ later discographies). Each band contributes two original songs, one on each side of the LP, covering a wide spectrum of punk sounds. Thus proving that West Germany had some amazing shit going on at that time!

TORPEDO MOSKAU – “Halts Maul”
Listen here:  

Download here

TORPEDO MOSKAU kicks off the party with a solid punk tune with impressive, frantic drumming. Then AGEN 53 maintains the quick pace with great chorus-effected basslines. Next up are the CRETINS who, along with NEUROTIC ARSEHOLES, offer up the best tracks on this LP. TIN CAN ARMY and VOLXFRONT have more of a mid tempo streetpunk approach with great fist pumping shout-alongs, but still showcasing some catchy guitar melodies and world-class hooks. The absurdly named PORNO PATROL picks things up with some excellent catchy hardcore. You may recall them from the essential International Peace 2xLP comp. Then we have “SWAPOland” from NEUROTIC ARSEHOLES, which has such an incredible, melodic, dynamic, and distinct sound. NEUROTIC ARSEHOLES aren’t really matched in sound by anyone, in my opinion — a truly honest and original sounding band, which really comes through in this track and the one that kicks off side B. But not before EA80 and CHAOS Z bring their first contributions to this master slab. The former is one of the (if not the) longest running, important DIY German punk bands. German punks can attest to EA80’s importance in the scene, and staying true to DIY ethics to this day. The last track on side A is a dark, droning, moody punk gem from CHAOS Z, who at this point had begun to evolve from primitive hardcore to a gloomier, somber punk sound (members later formed FLIEHENDE STURME, further exploring and evolving this sound and still doing so today!).

PORNO PATROL - ”Reality?”
Listen here:  

Download here

TIN CAN ARMY  – “Dead Born Babies”
Listen here:  

Download here

Side B serves up another dose of the same quality punk, never letting up for a second. Right off the bat is a major standout track, “Alles geht Weiter” by NEUROTIC ARSEHOLES. The bass and guitar eloquently trade off complimentary melodies, almost flirting with one another, as the tuneful vocalist acts as another instrument rather than just “singing words.” Another highlight is “Reality?” by PORNO PATROL, with its crude vocal attack and mid-tempo to fast hardcore switch up. They are the only band to sing in English on this comp, aside from TIN CAN ARMY’s “Dead Born Babies,” which boasts rich bass tone and catchy guitars and growling. The closing track might be my overall favorite. I literally can’t play “Warten Auf…” by CRETINS without wanting to get up and dance around the room, every time, without fail. I have put this song on nearly every mix tape I’ve ever made. It has this brilliant infectious, bouncy, clean guitar line that commands the listener to move their ass. And the chorus is easy to pick up on — it’s just “Cretin…Cretin! – Cretin…Cretin!”

CRETINS – “Warten Auf…”
Listen here:  

Download here

I’m pretty sure that there are plenty of copies of this LP out there, especially since Weird System re-released much of their original catalog, so I urge everyone to seek it out! But if you can’t find it, there are plenty of other amazing German punk/hardcore bands not featured on here that I recommend such as SLIME, RAZZIA, NORMAHL, MOTTEK, HOSTAGES OF AYATOLLAH, UPRIGHT CITIZENS, INFERNO, CERESIT, HANS-A-PLAST, BLUTTAT, VORKRIEGSJUGEND, INFERNO, MANIACS, SS ULTRABRUTAL, HONKAS, and TARGETS to name a few.

More tracks from this comp:
Chaos Z – “Ein Tropfen im Feuer”
Neurotic Arseholes – “Alles Geht Weiter”
EA80 – “Sie Werden Nie Verstehen”

March 2nd, 2012 by Matt Badenhop
Comments : Comments Off
Categories : From the Vaults, Record Reviews

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