After a bit of a pause, we're back in action. Not yet caught up on outstanding orders, but making progress every day. Thank you all for your continued patience and understanding.
Fuck, there's so much to talk about.
Should I say something about Minneapolis punk show shooting? (also thanks everybody that texted <3 )
Should I write about Sakevi passing?
Should I nerd the fuck out on Paintbox rehearsals CD?
Should I ramble and be funny about the Agravio/Destruido Canada tour?
Actually, I think....
none of the above lol.
My mind is totally focused on my date this weekend, going to the Dillinger Four gig at the State Fair together, gonna be the fuck lit.
And there's so much to say about the behemoth mountain of records/CDs/tapes currently in my living room lol.
Let's get on with it!
-Dan
--------
AUGUST NEW ARRIVALS
At the top of the list, my silly little record label has a new release out: a new Exit Hippies LP.
Exit Hippies are one of my top 5 favorite bands of all time. They completely changed my world forever, altered the way I think about punk, are a fundamental influence on my own art/music. I know I've told this story before, but getting Exit Hippies/Tantrum split 7" from Hardcore Holocaust when I was 18 was one of the most important moments of my life. I already had some raw records, Framtid, Contrast Attitude, Disclose, etc, sure, I was into that raw shit. But especially the Exit Hippies side, the track "3 AM Night Club"...when it breaks into that techno beat, it felt like everything I ever thought about punk was completely obsolete. I know they weren't the first band to do something beyond genre conventions in punk, but Exit Hippies was the first band that seriously resonated with me about it. I felt like, wait, what?? You can do something like that?? And then I understood, that punk should be an expression of the self, it doesn't need to be so codified and formal, it doesn't need to be bound by convention and genre....not that "pUnK iS a MiNdSeT" people sometimes use to justify the most wack ass soft bands, no, punk is an art form and its got limits. But as an art form, it can be artful, it can be deconstructed and subverted, it can be exercised and perfected, it can be honest and personal. Exit Hippies made me feel like, I don't need to worry about sounding like X band, I need to worry about sounding like ME. And I've always carried that with me, in all my art and expressions.
I heard that split 7", came back to my friend group 2 days later and said "Let's start a raw punk band", and the rest, fuck, basically it's called SPHC Records LOLLLLLLL.
Exit Hippies is a band that has been on an artistic journey. The first 7" is a pretty straightforward brutal crustcore record. This new LP is a pretty straightforward techno album that I once put on as background music when my friends were all doing LSD and molly in a basement and dancing around with glowsticks. It's more straightforward than their previous 12" and 7" single of weird ass dance music. It's another step forward along this journey, and I fucking adore every single moment of it.
SPHC-related, I just returned from a GREAT little Canadian stint with my Mexican crew Agravio and their partner band Destruido. I had some extra time in Montreal to hang with my friends, I reconnected with a lot a lot of people I hadn't seen in sooooo long, I ate my weight in poutine and smoked meat sandwiches. I have a newfound interest and appreciation for Quebec province. We went to some little Quebec towns I'd never even heard of and the gigs were so fuckin wild and crazy. One of my new touring dreams is to do a 10 days Canada tour and never go farther west than Montreal. It can be done and it'd be fuckin COOL.
I've returned with a couple Agravio tour tapes and Destruido tour tapes.
Agravio tape absolutely squashes their 7" on SPHC hahahaha, it's a big step forward for them, fuckin great shit. I hurt my shoulder doing the wheelbarrow to "Cerebros" at the second Montreal gig. Carlos' songwriting has so much tension and excitement, Hector's drumming left me scratching my head and rethinking my own drum style, and Priscilla is an embodiment of rock'n'roll pathos, she's a fuckin icon. I cannot wait to see what they do next. New LP on SPHC coming next year.
Destruido tape a proper d-beat smasher by my new favorite witch brigade. This band not only won me over by being just the loveliest people I wish I had more time with, and not only with their hunger (Colombia tour! Canada tour! check them out in Brazil come January! I LOVE a hungry band!), but they won me over with a particularly earnest and humble live show, full of politic and personality, that I wish more punk bands would lean into (something we talked about on this tour).
other good bands I saw: Ater (more on them later), Mock Execution (lived up to the hype! amazing!), Malcria (holy god damn wtf, unreal!), Zeal (night and day improvement from all their previous bands), Total Nada (best current Canadian band??)
Also my guys Terveet Kadet made some new shirts I thought were extra cool so I bought a ton of them lol.
In the previous update, I said we'd be bringing "pop-punk and noisecore", and indeed, I picked up a few copies of a couple crucial pop-punk platters. It's a bit early in the season for a new Houseghost LP in my opinion, but songs like "Happiest" and "Zig Zag Zig" reaffirm them as one of my favorite bands in the game right now. Teenage Bigfoot left such a positive impression on me when I hosted them here in Minneapolis, to hold their own on stage playing alongside a band like Navel is no small feat in my opinion. Teenage Bigfoot new LP is a terrific piece of lightening fast, lightening tight, lightening catchy, lightening memorable pop-punk, one of the best records of the year for this stuff.
And we got noisecore on lock too, with a special emphasis on everybody's favorite kvlt classic: The Gerogerigegege.
There are bigger Gero fanatics than I in this world so I won't pontificate so much about them here. Absolutely one of the best, coolest, most fascinating and exciting bands to (loosely) come from the world of punk. Legends. I was kinda late on the train for some reason but I'm a fanatic now. We got a healthy stack of the new 12" reissue of first 7", but if you are new to the Gero world we live in, my top recommendation is actually this singles collection CD. It's hard to say if any one singular release can at all summarize or represent the huge, abstract, and wildly inconsistent Gero discography. Uguisudani Apocalypse CD sounds literally nothing like the singles. But that singles collection CD contains the big classics that made Gero a household name, is relatively approachable compared to some of the more abstract and experimental releases, and also features a certain old SPHC fam LOLLLLL.
I also want to call some attention to:
the fantastic new PTAO CD, the OG Slovakian kvlt classics are back in the game and better than ever! Brutal shit! Vinyl version to come?
new DxIxE/Nikudorei split tape, 2 more absolute kvlt classics of Japanese grind and noise, you already know this shit's essential. We restocked that recent DxIxE CD too.
Lymphatic Phlegm/Flesh Grinder split 12" by popular demand, and we picked up other classic goregrind reissues that are tooooo graphic to casually e-mail to so many people, but if you're like me and Catasexual Urge Motivation is a good band in your book and you remember when everybody and their mother was talking about the first Disgorge LP as the most insanely brutal out-of-control psycho shit ever....I got you.
Okay we've discussed everything EXCEPT hardcore so let's get onto the shit you probably really want.
Paintbox rehearsals CD, I actually feel like I have too much to say about it so I don't want to say anything lest I write an entire novel about my favorite band. I've had it in my car all week, I love it of course. I was extremely curious what was going to be on it and where it fit within the Paintbox world, so I can tell you in a few short points for the fans:
1. "Crazy Moon" is on there (yay!) and I really wish this song had ever been given a proper recording.
2. Some of these songs were clearly (to me, anyway) works in progress that became songs on the first two LPs. Gives me a feeling like, Paintbox unafraid to toss stuff, go back to the drawing board, keep a good riff for a later date, etc.
3. Maybe the liner notes clarify the dates a bit more (CD in the car and I don't want to go out to check), I'm going to guess this is all 90's recordings. Obviously I am just some guy in the USA and I don't know any of these people, pure fan over here, do not take my word as fact. But I remember back at that time, I was told "there are rehearsal recordings of songs for a 4th LP and every song sounds like 'Raw Ore'".....well, who knows if that's actually true, or if these recordings were lost, etc.....Anyway, I wondered if this CD would be those recordings. It is not.
4. This is a great listen for fans, and as fans probably know, Paintbox would regularly play as a trio anyway, sometimes no Chelsea and sometimes no Mune, so close your eyes and imagine the Paintbox experience, hearing these songs in a live setting as a fan and how hyped you'd be.
5. Off topic but when you listen to other Paintbox rehearsal recordings, it is INSANE to think they wrote songs like "??" as early as the mid-90's. It's as if they knew the world wasn't ready for their genius and we all needed time to catch up.....
Next, can we do a Judgement live CD with all their unrecorded songs so I can conveniently hear "One Day" whenever I want? Thanks.
Speaking of Chelsea, there is also a new run of Death Side splits/singles/comps collection 2xCD. This could be a hot take but CD2 here is without a doubt my favorite Death Side material and some of my favorite music EVER, an absolutely essential part of my life's soundtrack from when I was a teenager to....just yesterday LOL. Lots of memories and emotions attached to songs like "Try" and "Cry For the Truth" for me.
Lots of discussion about Intention LP on the Discord, and if you like that you really need the new Confront CD to go along with it. And Cream Soda LP also made an impression on me, pretty noisy for this style and it feels so crazy.
On a different hardcore tip, I see the internet is loving the Guina EP, although I am really focused in on these 3 obscure Mexican hardcore demos that Esos Malditos Punks just put onto 7"s. I'm posing out, never heard of any of these before, and they're all fantastic. I'm also astounded by this Los Monjo discography 2xLP, picked up a few when I saw Roger in Montreal and I realize Mexicans do love this band but god damn, this is one hell of a love letter. When you actually see this thing and hold it in your hands, the steep price will feel like a bargain.
The world of hardcore never rests and so much crazy shit dropped while I've been running around. I LOVE this Kasshuve LP, terrific hardcore at maximum velocity brimming with attitude and snot, raw and totally off the rails, PERFECT shit. Lots of people digging the new Deletar LP, their best work yet. I have a soft spot for this Artificial Joy LP, dunno, just does it for me in ways other similar contemporary bands do not.
Want to give an extra shout to this Waffle promo tape. Indonesia hardcore that's clearly listening to what's happening in the USA in the past few years and mastering the style equally well. 7" in the works on another American label. Great shit and I always LOVE seeing southeast Asian punk make some waves on this other side of the world.
If you need that brutal crusty political shit, I cannot believe it but the comeback records of bands like Private Jesus Detector new LP and Cluster Bomb Unit new tape are actually very fuckin good. Always thought Cluster Bomb Unit was a particularly cool band, I'm very interested in them cause they were doing cool tours and building connections at a time and circumstance when that was less common, and PJD, I mean, record collectors know that brutal Belgian crustcore is a thing worth keeping tabs on just like Greek crust.
I was so impressed with Ater when they played with Destruido that I went and bought a small stack of Ater demo tape to bring home. Brutality!! Morgan saw me walking around with a stack of them and was like "oh, that's a good one!" LOL, so apparently it is known and I am just living in ignorance.
For more commentary on this stuff and more, please scope our Instagram page, where we review choice new arrivals as they come. If it sounds cool when we talk about it, it'll sound even cooler when you hear it streaming on the online store, and even cooler still when you buy the record and slap it on your turntable.
--------------
on the way for September:
monstrous nuclear stockpiles from FOAD and RSR
more of the latest Japanese and Colombian hardcore
The Chronnibals LP, PUMPED
maybe another SPHC release or two?
more More MORE
Thanks and talk more later.
-Dan