First off, I've been lagging a bit on getting orders out. Apologies for that. I had a hiccup with Endicia overcharging me and I'm still waiting to get all that sorted out before I get back to it. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
Second off, I've been lagging a bit on responding to e-mails. Sorry about that. No particular excuse here, I've just slowly become a guy that's not good at e-mails anymore. Going to try to make a concerted effort to get caught up in the next 1-2 weeks.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about bbq. Recently I was fortunate enough to eat at a famous bbq place, with a long list of celebrity customers, "the best ribs in America!" as proclaimed by The Food Network, critically acclaimed up and down. I was also fortunate enough to eat at a tiny bbq shack on the side of the road in a small town, run by a wife and husband who were kind enough to talk shop with us, show us their smoker and grill, discuss their days of waking up at 4 AM to get the meat on the fire, etc. They were simply lovely to hang out with for a bit. And I gotta say, they had the better ribs, without a doubt.
Helen and her husband are dedicated to the craft of bbq, and it shows in their ribs. The quality of meat, the quality of barbequing, the quality of sauce, everything was perfected through countless days, years, of refinement. They live and breathe bbq, it's their life. And they receive little formal accreditation for this, no trophies or tv spots or whatever. "What's the point?" they said. They've got nothing to prove. The locals adore them, they do enough business to keep moving forward. Why spend the money to fly out for some big competition? What would they gain by participating in the rat race?
I don't want to discount the efforts of this big fancy successful restaurant with "the best ribs in America!". I imagine they're living and breathing bbq too, and you can't rise to such a level without having some skill to back it up. But I do think that bbq, just like punk, is normally going to be at its best when it's made by eccentric people dedicated to the craft, not necessarily the best business people and marketers. When it comes to bbq, I'm always going to opt for the shacks on the side of the road.
-Dan
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MARCH NEW ARRIVALS
So the big winner for this month is the Sekunderna EP. We talked about this a bit on the Instagram (I swear this is coming back!) but this was a recommendation from a friend and now I need every record by this band. Flawless power-pop, label namedrops Marked Men and Ebba Gron, they're from Sweden so the Masshysteri comparison is a tad unavoidable but this is way less moody and effected and more pop and rock, drives harder and feels more upbeat. Instantly memorable melodies, the "steady 4 beat" that is exactly how I like my power-pop....Terrific!!
This month's big thing is METAL. I don't actually like metal so I have relatively little to say about all this. Although I did find the Atrocity LP to be a great listen, leaning way more towards a Repulsion sense of grindcore than metal to my ears. A few of my friends have been texting me about Dominus XUL LP, we still have a few left if you act fast!
We also have a big stack of grind-type stuff that's a tad more to my liking. Lots of people talking about Socioclast LP, and for good reason, I swear there hasn't been another band to master the Assuck sound so perfectly. Lots of discussion about Goredozer EP in the Discord because goregrind is cool now, I get it lol. But I'm most thrilled by new Yacopsae LP, fucking good lord this thing RIPS. Easily their best material in like a decade. Just the sort of relentless, unnervingly tight, deafeningly brutal fastcore I'm looking for from this band. Also pumped on Mortify LP cause I'm always happy to hear Ryohei drumming. =)
We have a little spread of the latest d-beat/crusty stuff going on. Disease LP took me by surprise, easily their best work yet, total Disclose noise-not-music sense of d-beat destruction. But of course I'm most ecstatic for Excrement of War LP. Guess I just wasn't expecting this would ever find its way onto vinyl. Sometimes we live in a good timeline. This album is a minor classic of brutal crusty shit, a nonstop barrage of brutal vocals, heavy guitars, and relentless d-beats, with enough energy and attitude to make it an engaging listen from start to finish.
We also got a giant box of several of the latest (and sometimes not-so-latest) and greatest demo tapes from around the USA and Canada. Speaking of Excrement of War, if you dig that shit you've gotta hear Instinct? demo tape, everyone is talking about this shit and with good reason. Brutal crusty shit ain't a dead style yet. I was also really impressed by Insolent Wretch demo tape, a solid lo-fi exercise in....brutal crusty shit!!....that was completely off my radar until tonight. Truly, it's not a dead style yet.
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.
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arriving in the mail someday:
-giant boxes of reissues from Hungary and from Russia and from Poland
-big box of the latest and greatest Japanese stuff
and more more more !!
Thanks and talk more in April.
-Dan