V/A - Jabberjaw - Good To The Last Drop

Year: 1994

Label: Mammoth

Originally this was a series of benefit 7"s to raise money for the Los Angeles venue/coffeehouse Jabberjaw featuring unreleased material from bands who had taken the tiny stage. The lineup is pretty impressive:

Girls Against Boys

Unwound

Hole

Hammerhead

Beck

Teenage Fanclub

Slug

Chokebore

Mule

Helmet

Southern Culture On The Skids

Karp

Jawbox

Surgery

Unsane

Seaweed

Inch

That Dog

Further

DL

400 Blows - Black Rainbow

Year: 2003

Label: Rehash

This music is a tightly wound ball of energy that writhes, roils, and continually folds in on itself. The rhythms are militaristic in their precision, the guitar lines are pulled taut, and the vocals are overdriven stories of sickened characters. It's hard to imagine these tunes coming out of sunny Los Angeles, but 400 Blows are graduates of the same scene that gave us Slug, Qui, Year Future, Bluebird, and the Icarus Line among so many others. 

Black Rainbows will be seen in the near future as a crucial release in the pantheon of rock n roll, no shit, it's that good. They are better, smarter, crazier, and less polite than the average "metal" band, and I imagine their fans are too. 

DL