Fuck, I always have so much to ramble about...
Should I talk about the government shutdown? Oh wait, it didn't happen!
Should I further lament all the different ways I hate corporations encroaching on punk? Yes, but also, very trite by now, I've had the same sorts of spiels for years!
This weekend I am traveling down to Rochester MN to visit one of my bandmates on his home turf. We'll take his teenage son to a video game/comic/anime-type convention. Mike doesn't know anything about "nerd shit", but I definitely do, especially since anime is my big thing other than punk. I'm hoping I'll get on okay with his son based on this sort of mutual interest. Typically, I've always been able to bond with all my friends' kids, from Talib's sons in Kuala Lumpur to Scott's stepson in Montreal, cause all young people everywhere watching One Piece and My Hero Academia and shit, just like me.
Truly, anime has graduated out of "nerd shit" and just become global popular culture, from my coworkers to my acquaintance at the post office. Hell, even my bandmates in Sexcells were talking to me tonight about the live action One Piece adaptation...which is great and I recommend it on its own merits.
Punk feels like it's at a high point in popularity, at least here in Minneapolis. Gigs always feel full, with an energized youth contingent that's really going for it. Will punk ever transition out of "nerd shit" and into global popular culture? Or wait, did it already? Turnstile? Green Day? Where do things stop being relevant for "punk", and just become another commercial rock entity? Does punk have a glass ceiling that cannot be breached without losing its defining features? Is punk destined to be outsider shit because once it stops being on the outside, it ceases to be punk? An age old question, asked since 1977!
When people ask me what kind of music I play, I always say "punk....you know, short fast and loud." Sometimes that gets a little laugh, but pretty much everybody has a basic understanding of what I mean, some expectation of what that implies. In some ways, punk is also global popular culture, because rock is and punk has had such an obvious impact on rock music.
But nonetheless, nobody has ever commented on my Rocky and the Sweden sweatshirt, whereas almost every single time I wear my End of Evangelion sweatshirt in public, someone stops me to compliment and chat about anime.
So, I think anime still in the lead here lol.
Anyway, I'll be out of town Oct 11 - Nov 12, so all orders from that time will ship once I return unless I can squeeze them into the brief times I'll be home. And I swear I'm going to do the best I can to get the mailorder docket clear before I leave, if you order this weekend I am going to do my best best best to get it out the door on Tuesday.
-Dan
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OCTOBER NEW ARRIVALS
This month's major highlight is this Dexkoncierto demos LP. A true labor of love and respect in collecting all the earliest recordings of this classic Colombian hardcore band, with tons of liner notes, scans, even a poster. Total shit-fi hardcore attack, simplistic anti-everything brutality. 90's Colombia ranks as one of my top 3 favorite time/places for punk music and it's recordings like these that never fail to get my blood boiling. Incredible shit, big recommendation.
I really hate to play the "exclusive" card because most of the time it's people talking out their ass, but...it is not at all clear to me that many copies made it out of Colombia and I really think you need to buy this now or cry about it later.
Okay, we got A LOT of Japanese stuff of all styles and mediums.You need to grind? You need that Realized LP.
You want to dance and sing along? The Geros CD is perfect for your car.
Throw up the devil horns and bang your long hair? Absolute Zero CD practically gonna get you in corpse paint, with its noised-out chainsaw crusty blackened thrash.
Or maybe you charge your hair? Get up on Barrows CD for that noise not music soundtrack to a bathroom soap session.
Or if you want to go even farther and dread up, need that filthy UK crusty hardcore sound of Summer of Death CD, fits right in with your Concrete Sox, Sacrilege, and early Napalm Death stuff.
If you're like me and you just want the traditional hardcore sounds, get on that Warsaw discography CD and Inzest collection LP, and don't skimp on So What new EP just because it's a new recording, it's a fuckin monster. Singer still got big mohawk so you know it's legit!!!
I was really impressed by Unhuman Society Death LP, had never even heard of this before but as the description says, it's total SOB 2nd LP style, manic thrash metal that grinds like a bastard, terrific!
Plenty of Japanese stuff but I do live here in USA so of course we got plenty of American stuff too. I LOVE the Grawlixes EP, their noise punk style is so comforting, had me like, 'ah remember when this was how every newer band sounded?' LOL. I know they're in the same age bracket as me, so we got similar reference points and it makes their sound so refreshing to me compared to how jaded I often feel.
Nurse LP also brought back some memories, like wtf, is this band still around?? LOL. I remember seeing them in an Atlanta living room with Inservibles in 2012 and trading for a stack of their 7" at that time. I dunno how or why this LP is coming now, but I see many happy reactions in the Discord.
Also want to give a nod to Social Pressure EP because I still think it's rare for a Baltimore band to actually make a record. Nice one!
And not just USA, we got the world's latest hardcore shockers this month. From killer reissues like Psykisk Terror discography LP, with that classic Norge sound I adore, and Voorhees first EP expanded into an LP, one of the most underrated 90s hardcore classics, to current day killers like Warcycle new EP with their crasher crust brutality, and Noche tape, straight out of Costa Rica but, to me, they obviously loved the Muerte LP too cause they use many of the same sorts of tricks and ideas. GREAT tape.
But the one I was most excited about is the vinyl debut of The Chronnibals LP! Lithuanian pogo punk, and I dig the clean and polished new material and it sounds so much like the sort of punk so many of my friends here in Minneapolis like the most, but for me it's all about the demo tape recordings on the B-side. Piss raw, loose, tuneful, catchy, exactly the way I like this sort of punk. As I told them, next please do Antisocialiniai Psichopatai LP!!!!
And finally, if you got a need for speed, grind has had a few terrific releases lately. Top of the pops, for me, is new Shitstorm LP. YOWZERS, this is a hot platter, easily far and away the best thing they've ever done and probably the one truly GREAT new grind record of the year. Cannot recommend this enough for speed freaks. If only all grind was this good.
Along similar lines, we got some copies of new In Disgust 12". Legendary band, they never really clicked with me but I know they did for everyone else, and I do have a vivid memory of them annihilating a San Jose warehouse with No Statik, Permanent Ruin, and Replica....now THAT was a fuckin gig, I can't remember why I was there exactly (as in, why was I in San Jose at that time? what was I doing there? I don't know anymore LOL) but I remember rolling with Hairy Dan, Stephanie Chang, and I think Chris Catfood was with us too.....
Depending on how you like your grind, if you want noisier, get up on WBI collection 12", if you want gorier, hit that Regurgitate collection 12", and if you just straight up need some death metal, I recommend these two Subterranean demo tapes, very wacked out cosmic brutalities.
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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on the way for November:
3 new SPHC releases
Krigshoder LPs
Last Survivors LPs
PATCHES
more More MORE
Thanks and talk more later.
-Dan