The Blind Shake - Key To A False Door

Label: Castle Face
Year: 2013

Wait, hold up...you're telling me that there are STILL bands making NEW music?! AFTER 1997?!
Whoa. Nuts.
Case in point, there's this band The Blind Shake, who are actually a functioning, contemporary, rock and roll group. Now. They are doing this stuff right now. So weird. And to add to the weirdness, this band decided to go the ole tried and true two-guitar-no-bass route. That ole chestnut again. Granted, one guitar is baritone, so it's lower end, but...you know. Works though. Works out real fine.
Take some primitive garage rock attack, filter it through the skewed psych pop sensibilities of a John Cale, then run that sound past the guys in Vaz, and you might end up with a sound similar. It can go straight for the toe-tapping melody of catchy fun time jam, or they can wrestle that melody to the ground and force a gallon of NyQuil into it's throat to watch it writhe into a slow motion drone, or it can be an ice melting blast of feedback scree that launches that very same melody into the wall in the back of the room at 1000 mph.
Highly recommended

DL

Alarms & Controls - Reanimus Cataract / Kirtland's Warbler 7"

Label: Dischord / Mud Memory
Year: 2012

Here's the debut from this band, that almost wasn't, but thankfully is, and hopefully will continue to be.
Two of the three members have had long and storied pasts in bands that you and your cool friends have heard of, or maybe you guys even saw them in some small basement somewhere "before they had a record out"...that's how cool you and your friends are. Did you see Crownhate Ruin, Circus Lupus, 1.6 Band, Monorchid, Antimony, The Sorts, or Canyon? Maybe you're ahead of the curve.
If not, don't fret, it's just music, it's not some exclusive club...you're welcome to enter at any time.
I would encourage entry here if you're a fan of the circuitous post hardcore styling's of mid to late 90's era Dischord Records, the kind of music that borrows from the Minutemen's jazz damage, and marries it to Rites Of Spring's cathartic urgency, with an overall sheen of arty pop bounce. If that seems like a good time to you, and there's no reason to think otherwise, then you should do yourself the favor of investigating Alarms & Controls.

DL

Hungry Ghost - Hungry Ghost

Label: Self Released
Year: 2012

"ex-Unwound" is going to go pretty far in my home as far as potential descriptors to get me interested. It could be argued that Unwound were the greatest band of the 90's...you could make that case. You'd get into a fight with a whole cadre of nerds and know-it-alls who would be talking about Fugazi and stuff, but there's a legitimate case to be made.
So, with Unwound having been merely a power trio (technically a quintet if you factor the second drummer, and the second guitarist), you have had merely three personalities to latch onto post-Unwound in hopes of hearing some of "that old magic" again. You'll never hear "that old magic" by the way, and the band members will be the first ones to tell you as such, but you can hear those flashes of brilliance that take you back to the drum tight mania that coalesced into the Unwound sound. Survival Knife is giving you some. Flora v. Fauna gave(?) you some. And Hungry Ghost give you some too.
Hungry Ghost gives it to you in an grooving, windows down, blues damaged, post-hardcore car ride baking under the last hours of a summer sun. It's a 70's vibe in the same way that Black Mountain or The Duke Spirit saunter through the 1970s via the Dischord Records catalog of the early 90s.

DL

Nirvana - Live - 05-14-90 - Lincoln Nebraska, Duffy's Tavern

Label: Bootleg
Year: 1990

1990 was a big touring year for Nirvana, and there are lots of shows from that run of shows posted (lots of them here [this actual one apparently...oops, just noticed that. oh well, the link was dead anyway]), and there's little variation in the set lists from show to show, but the constant touring has tightened up the band and honed their sound. For "seat-of-your-pants" type songs, they manage to play them with astonishing precision.
Also of note, Kris Novoselic introducing "Dive" as song that will appear on their new album coming out soon, which would have been Nevermind, of which "Dive" was not apart of. Not that exciting, just sayin'. They do play Nevermind songs in the set, along with some songs that were on 7"s and compilations, but it's a Bleach-heavy selection. Fine by me.
Technical notes:
The live set is supposed to end with the song "Blew", but it's cut off. Sorry. After the set, there's a collection of demo recordings that...well, I don't have a clue where they came from. They seem to be unrelated in terms of when and where they were recorded, but I couldn't tell you. This was a cd in a bindle of cds marked only as "Nirvana - Live 05.14.90", and I'm not even sure where I got it, but I've had it since 2000 or so, most likely downloaded from some Napster-ish site around that time.
Anyway, it's that band Nirvana, the one your grandparent's like, so, take a chance.

DLhttp://www25.zippyshare.com/v/97750189/file.html

Raw Radar War - Double Equals

Label: Shifty / Traktor 7
Year: 2006

Hey, look who's still alive...me. Sort of. Technically.

When life has you down, my prescription is 10cc of Kentucky bourbon, 75cc of obnoxiously loud hate music (please see the attached Raw Radar War album for your convenience), and 5cc fart jokes. Administer internally three times daily and get plenty of rest.

This particular brand of medicinal grade throat punching noise, is brought to you by Jonah Jenkins, the voice of Only Living Witness, Milligram, Milltown, Blind Surgeon, and 5ive (on rare occasion), along with his buddies from heavy hitters Toetag, Kozik, and OHM. Which basically means you're getting a that good time d-beat crusty hardcore that Cursed reanimated from His Hero Is Gone who reanimated it from Amebix, but given a thorough "sludging up", courtesy of the Milligram school of everything thicker than everything else.
It's bound to get that cold, dead heart of yours up and running again, and in the mood for romance. Look out ladies!

DL

Street Sects - The Morning After The Night We Raped Death

Label: self released
Year: 2014

A member of this band was generous enough to send along an actual hardcopy of this 7", which is the first in a five part series that will eventually be compiled into "Gentrification: A Serial Album", which has a running conceptual them of...wait for it...gentrification. But probably not the way you may think. It's not about double-income-no-kids gay couples moving into downtrodden neighborhoods that boast a backbone of well built 1920's Craftsmen homes and an underutilized commercial node that would be just perfect for a coffee shop, and possibly an artisanal personal trainer's studio (of course), eventually pricing out the current (if not original, but probably not) residents who are now cashing out (or at least their landlords are cashing out) and being forced further out of the city center to even more downtrodden neighborhoods with less of a backbone of anything.
No, not what this record is about.
This is about a swarming mechanical headfuck of unrelenting attack. It's very much an alien music, if in fact you accept that it's music in the first place. There's some of the chaotic almost-hardcore of Phantomsmasher (who's James Plotkin mastered this very record), some of the debris sifting industrial of Haters, and some of the confrontational bombast of Boyd Rice, all performed from within the cold dark house that Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV built. Unsettled for the unrestrained. File under: The Opposite Of Easy Listening and listen proudly.

DL

Frodus - F-Letter

Label: Magic Bullet
Year: 2003

Point of clarification: this is a reissue of an album originally released in 1996 by Art Monk Construction and Lovitt Records, but Magic Bullet was kind enough to add four tracks to the end that are exclusive to this release. Further point of clarification: two of those four exclusive tracks are jokey 13 and 33 second long..."songs". Final point of clarification: both versions are currently out of print.
This, earlier, Frodus doesn't get as much "love" (as the kids once said, or still do say..don't keep up) as their last two albums did, as the band started morphing into weirder and more "post" post hardcore, but I tend to listen more to this era of the band. It's more straight forward, less of the pomp and circumstance of the later stuff, which, while fun at that time, the whole "branding" and back stories, and philosophies and whatnot...well, they seem quaint now (the music never suffered mind you).
But this album gets straight to the heart of their beloved District Of Columbia and all her quirky post hardcore scree. I respect that.

DL

The Cutthroats 9 - The Cutthroats 9

Label: Man's Ruin

Year: 2000

The other Cutthroats 9 full length was posted a few months back, and I believe I made my opinions clear then as to which band was superior, Cutthroats 9 or Unsane (here's a hint, it was Cutthroats 9). But with that recent JJ Paradise Players Club post, I started thinking about these guys again (Dave Curran is in both bands) and thought we should get this record up here post haste. I'm not sure exactly how Chris Spencer did it, but he took the Unsane template and made a band that was more menacing than it' predecessor. This band just feels more aggressive and hateful than Unsane...and that's saying something. There's also a more liberal use of the slide in his solos on this record, if you're into that kind of thing. I don't want to speak for you or anything.

Reptilian Records re-released this album a few years after Man's Ruin went belly-up, and you can probably still find it in their catalog, it's an impressive catalog after all.

In other news, did anyone else notice that Fred and Ipecac were back in effect? It's like a real team here now, shit, I was just in the Shiny Grey Break room and Fred and I made plans for a little beach volleyball match this weekend (cue Top Gun montage), and Ipecac and I are back to our standing 3:30pm slap fight date. It's just like old times!

* originally posted 04.17.09, reposted 01.30.14 since someone asked really really nicely.

DL

Fiddlehead - Live Atlanta - Midtown Music Hall - 07-24-94 - Last Show

Label: Bootleg
Year: 1994

This morning I was listening to Fiddlehead on my commute, which, you know, I'm prone to do. I fucking love Fiddlehead. So, also as I'm prone to do, I shoot a text to my buddy James Joyce (yes, THE James Joyce) to air out my theory that Fiddlehead rules so hard, and that they should have been this big, popular, lasting thing.
James agreed. He knows the deal.
And who wouldn't agree? If you like Drive Like Jehu, you like Fiddlehead, they were one guitarist away from being Drive Like Jehu (and possibly one bad attitude away). If you like the weirder parts of Swiz mixed with Bitch Magnet mixed with Slint, you like Fiddlehead. You like Fiddlehead, you just haven't heard them yet. I honestly can't think of a reason why you wouldn't like them, and trust me, I've spent time on the subject. So barring a personal grievance (which is a legitimate possibility), this is something you will like.
The aforementioned James did a couple great posts on the band over at the Beyond Failure blog here, including a crucial contemporary interview with Geoey Cook (vocals) and Mike Haggerty (bass) reflecting on what was, or would have been...go read it. Included in those posts are all of their studio output, and some live recordings (provided by Henry Owings of Chunklet), which are well worth checking out, but this one in particular, being their last show, and seeing as they end with a completely peerless, unfuckwithable triumvirate of "Lock End" (personal favorite), "Hard Genny", and "Waiting With Dave"...well...shit, you just don't do much better, so I was inclined to get it posted here.
Of the "could of, would of, should of's" of 1990's rock music, Fiddlehead are one of the biggest unsung heroes there are, or were. They were perfect.

DL

Glifted - Under And In

Year: Martians Go Home

Label: 2002

First off, I must apologize for the lack of posts recently, but some unforeseen changes in my professional life have forced a shift in priorities as of late, and thusly I have not been very motivated to "blog" as it were.

But you don't care do you? I probably wouldn't.

So then on to Glifted. A duo consisting of Tim Lash of Hum, and T.J. Harrison of Lovecup out of Campaign-Urbana who produced the first piece of music to rival My Bloody Valentine, since the release of the watershed "Loveless". And I mean that. This is a true shoegazing monster in that My Bloody Valentine vein; hypnotic, pulsing, droning waves of thick guitars with the disembodied, distant vocals swelling over the music. It's sort of Hum + My Bloody Valentine + Mercury Rev. It's strange music, maybe not "rock" music per se, but it's definitely heavy, and it should appeal to followers of this blog. 

Let me know what you think.

*Originally posted 11.24.08, reposted 01.27.14 - this one has been back in regular rotation in my life, so I assume you should rotate it accordingly.

DL