STEVE LAKE-So Cruel (play it again Sam)

Morgan wanted me to send this to here because her record player is gone, so here you go!

This is the second solo lp from ZOUNDZ frontman Steve Lake. Don't know a whole lot about it except that ever since I came across it four years ago it's been one of my favorites. Kind of cheesey, but very awesome pop record and I probably listened to it every day for the duration of tenth grade. 'I Wish' is definitely my favorite song on here-listen to that fucking bass lick! Anyways, totally underrated record. Hope you like it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGAN!

So Cruel

THE APOSTLES-Libertarian Propaganda (3rd demo)

Well, I am back in desolate and frozen landscape from whence I was born and raised, ready to share with you a similarly desolate landscape:THE APOSTLES 3rd demo 'Libertarian Propaganda.' I planned on uploading this alongside the JOY OF LIVING split, but stolen internet sucks for file-uploading. Anyways...

While Andy Martin will tell you plainly enough that THE APOSTLES were shit and that they should remain forever in the past, I must beg to differ. I stumbled across this tape quite early on in my forays into the world of punk with the help, of course, of the internet. Having only really discovered the likes of CRASS a year or two prior, and having my entire mind blown out of my fragile skull, I was ravenously scouring Soulseek for anything related to them. Time and again I would stumble across a gigantic folder marked simply "THE APOSTLES" which contained easily 25-35 releases-most of them demos. Needless to say, files were downloaded, expectations heightened and shattered. At the age of fourteen my concept of what was 'Punk' entirely changed. I fell completely in love with the long, meandering, dirge-like songs on this tape. Quite simply, there was very little else like it that I had heard, and the songs scarcely resembled what I had previously thought punk to be. The production is absolute shit but I wouldn't have it any other way. It casts a certain fog of despair over the whole thing and this has long since been a Winter-time staple in my listening. Sad, isolated, cold, cold music. Anyways, please enjoy this-or don't. Merry christmas, you bastards.

Libertarian Propaganda

skullcrusher

Going to see BASTARD NOISE on Tuesday in Seattle. Low frequency-induced bowel movements? Fainting old people? Should be incredible, I think I'll even try to take some photographs. Go if you can, cry if you can't.

I've been pretty lazy lately. Oh well. ARCTIC FLOWERS fucking blew me away but I got too drunk and forgot to purchase a tape. I finished reading Hot Water Music and now I'm about half way through Brave New World. This past week I enjoyed listneing to these particular records:

DEATHSIDE/CHAOS UK split: I've only been listening to the DEATHSIDE half of this really, preferring the earlier, more punk, incarnation of CHAOS UK and because its totally fucking raging! Seriously, this shit is retarded! You never need to listen to TRAGEDY again!
!!!!!!!!
LEGION OF PARASITES-Undesirable Guests ep/ Prison of Life lp: Awesome UK hardcore which drifts heavily nto Thrash territory by the release of their lp. FUCKING AWESOME!

STALIN-Stop Jap bootleg: YEARRRRRRRRRGH!

KRIG I HUDIK ep: Sweating to the oldies!

zine will be out by the new year. going to work now. by. punk. weeo.

Compact chaos

Forgot to mention yesterday that there is a punk show at the Alf house this Friday. Portland's COWER and RAW NERVES will be wrecking your ears (they were ugly anyways) alongside locals FEAR OF TOMORROW and the worst band with the best name HITLERS COCK. Anyways, come out, get drunk, you will have a good time and so will I.

THIS JUST IN: COWER HAVE ALSO BACKED OUT OF THE BILL ONLY TO BE REPLACED BY THE AMAZING ARCTIC FLOWERS. DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW!

Etc. Etc.

So when I don't feel like listening to music I generally indulge myself in talk radio. Up until very recently this generally consisted of listening to Coast-to-Coast AM in the evenings and then whatever idiots were on the local call ins (as well as syndicated ones like Dr. Laura), but this month the stupid talk-radio station switched to an all-sports format. Fucking lame. Anyways, I was listening to Mr. Steven Quayle's appearance on Coast-to-Coast a couple of nights ago and this is what he had to say; his friend was in the Navy some forty years ago was kidnapped by the US government and transported to a secret underground base on a secret, unknown island where he was placed in a group home in which he stumbled upon a gigantic, labyrinthine, underground research facility filled with "High-tech lab equipment, government researchers, doctors, military guards...[G]enetic research being done, and also saw giant hybrids and Grey Aliens...had a personal experience with one of the hybrids later in his career...labs were run by the US government and had ALIEN/FALLEN ANGEL COLLABORATIONS!" Greatest shit I've ever heard on the radio. George actually had to ask him "you really believe all of this?" Of course the answer was yes. Also, Steven mentioned that he and a collaborator recently found a giant's skeleton somewhere overseas with calcified Horns but his contact was blown up "on his way to Fiji." Fuck cable.

Anyways, I've been listening to the YOUNG WASTENERS 7" that came out on Hjertspind whenever. Am I the only one who got this record, or just the only person who thinks it's fucking awesome? I definitely think that it's better than the LP, which is something I find myself saying a lot when it comes to punk records. What it is I'm not sure, but there is something about the 7"/12" EP format that lends itself so readily to punk. To be sure, when dealing with an artistic milieu comprised generally of inept musicians talent and innovation can only be stretched so far. The EP leaves no room for potential fodder. If all the songs aren't mind-benders I just don't see the point of filling in the blank spots with some shit that's "just okay". Hit me with your best shot, not a load of shit with diamonds poking out of it! There's nothing I love and respect more than groups who take the entire aesthetic of their endeavor into account including things like recording format, press runs and all the rest of the shit 96% of bands just slog off as semantics or ignore altogether. No more of this fucking MSPaint/Photoshop computerized pixelated fucking garbage. I can think of about 15 records off the top of my head I flip past in my collecton because they look like fucking shit. I'd rather see a cut-and-pasted shit insert than some shit insert with a blown-up, distorted image you found on Google, or worse yet a collage of blown-up, distorted images you found on Google. At least you actually tried to do something. Some of the best stuff I've ever heard is total sonic shit, but when looked at contextually, as a whole, as a piece of fucking art they're incredible. Computers are ruining punk, I know you've all heard it before. I yearn for the days of trade-lists, xerox machines and mailorder. The elusive and cult-like air surrounding bands like GISM or CRASS. Convenient access to the means of production and distribution of music, like anything in life, is a blessing as well as a curse. A great many doors are opened but a great deal of homogenization has allowed for larger numbers of people to move through those doors at an increased rate. This blog may well be an example of this. Somebody remarked to me recently that people should have to apply for licenses to release records like in the old Soviet countries. I'm not sure if I totally agree with that but goddamn if I don't share their sentiment. I guess I just wish people would spend more time perfecting their craft before subjecting the world to it. I'm not saying people shouldn't be out there trying to put out music, but I kind of am...
This rambling hunk of shit inspired by the following: THE APOSTLES,GISM, THROBBING GRISTLE, CRASS, INVASION/DESTINO FINAL, LEBENDEN TOTEN, DISTORT FANZINE, NU SENSAE, NERVESKADE, DEVO, SMART PEOPLE.

My internet connection has been surprisingly good lately so it's time to begin the record uploads. I'm putting these records/tapes up for download with the express purpose of making hard to find/out of print material available to those who would otherwise never hear it. If you are objected to having your material available here or if something is still readily available please email me and I will promptly remove it.
Anyways, here are two releases by one of my favorite bands of all time: THE APOSTLES. First an EP from 1986 featuring a couple members of THE JOY OF LIVING. I am having doubleplustdifficulty in trying to learn anything about the relationship between these two groups except for a small blurb on KYPP and Wikipedia. TJOL apparently released only a demo cassette in addition to their appearence on this ep. Oh well. Anyways, just listen to the fucking guitar during chorus of 'The Wasteland'! Being a group prone to atonal meanderings and experimentation this is a good example of the oft-overlooked pop sensibilities of THE APOSTLES. Andy Martin, vocalist, in Ian Glasper's The Day The Country Died: "I gravitated more towards the industrial and independent pop music scene, where I encountered TWELVE CUBIC FEET...[T]hey'd invite me to gigs with them but I usually declined-a night out having my ears assaulted by 'Flux of Punk Idiots' did not appeal to me...surrounded by leather-clad morons all beer and safety pins, sharing one damaged brain between them? No thanks. Pete, Julian and Dan were not like that, so I couldn't understand why they moved in such circles; I'd invite them to accompany me to the Africa Centre to see THE LEMON KITTENS and EYELESS IN GAZA, but they'd look at me with just the right amount of pity to ensure I realized how far apart we were culturally."
For comparison I've also included one of my favorite early demo affairs by THE APOSTLES: 'Libertarian Propaganda' released in 1982, the same year their also-brilliant '2nd Dark Age' demo was released. Primitive, meandering, hypnotic and primal. I often listened to this on grey winter days back in Calgary and do mostly the same here in Vancouver. Please seek out all material by this group as well as ACADEMY 23 and UNIT for a truly great example of the DIY ethic applied to music as well as art and life general.

(links are in the comments!)

Enjoy!

Are you afraid of the night?

Tormentor is the best SLAYER song, and Show No Mercy is indeed their finest record. Fuck off rain.