SBHMNS (Canaduh)

While I'll always have a soft spot for the UK band of the same name based upon nostalgia alone, I have grown to absolutely love the Canadian Subhumans and dropped out of the debate about which one was better some time ago.  Don't let petty tomfoolery distract you from the Golden Radiance of the Truth..that both bands are really damn good!  Get into it!  You probably have enough by Dick, Trotsky and Co., so here are some excellent selections by our northern neighbors.

"Death to the Sickoids / Oh Canaduh" 7" (1978)

"Firing Squad / No Productivity" 7" (1980)

 "No Wishes, No Prayers" LP (1980) 

 

Equalizing Distort

I decided to make Gauze the first band to get a second post on this thing, they're just the best of all time!  You got their first record, Fuck Heads, here.  Logically, you should get the second record next, Equalizing Distort, from 1986, right?

RIGHT

p.s. don't wait on me to find the third record, it's maybe the best!

 see for yourself

 

Heresy

Quick fastcore injection!  This is HERESY, the United Kingdom's fastcore champions.  This is their side of a split with another good band, Concrete Sox.  But this is a Quick Fastcore Injection! so you will only get the Heresy songs and you will like it.

FAST!

JFA

Perfect 7" EP's are probably my favorite type of record.  You don't have time to think or overanalyze, you just sit there for 7 or 8 minutes and go, "whoa."  They are over as soon as they start, and you don't have to wade through or endure any trifling ass shit.  These are the records where every song fits perfectly into place and contributes to the whole idea.  This is a hard thing to do, because there's not much room for ideas in under 10 minutes of music.  Every second has to count, and when bands accomplish that, holy cow, the results are unmatched.  As proof, here's an absolute shredder of a 7" from Cali's JFA or Jodie Foster's Army.  It's from '81, Blatant Localism is its title, and it's the stuff punk rock dreams are made of.  So many bands start out sounding like this,  but none of them sound like this, ya know?  It's the unfingerable x-factors that make records like this stand the test of time...it could be the unbridled aggression, the unhinged vocals, the inherent chaos of not knowing what it is exactly you're doing, or it could be one of the best lyrics of all time: "Surf punks we're not!  Skateboard we do!"  Any way you slice it, this record ranks up there with the greats of American punk.

SKATEBOARD WE DO

Gloom

This weekend is the horrid and infamous Bele Chere festival in downtown Asheville.  It's basically just 3 days of the worst music and people taking over the business district of the city and turning into a grotesque, smelly urban tailgate party.  All of us downtowners have to scatter or worse...work amidst the shit.  It's not just unpleasant, it can also be quite dangerous, as the invading rednecks get really drunk and really bored and every once in a while they work up the gall to chase down and beat up the unhappy, weird looking folks, i.e. most of the people that live and work downtown.  I guess the point of this is that I was walking home from work, dodging stumbling festival-goers and holding my breath through clouds of nauseating perfume and axe body spray and the worst part of it was that my headphones just broke, so I was without even music to ease my mind.  So I put on my imaginary brain music and it probably sounded somthing like this band I'm sharing with you here.  Gloom from Japan are one of the originators of the "crasher crust" sound.  It's over the top crust punk, with the noise, darkness, speed and misery cranked all the way to 11.  I don't know much about the band, and their records are incredibly difficult to find, but I do know that Gloom are not fucking around on this record from '93, Speed Noise Hardcore Rags.  Are you unbelievably enraged?  Gloom's right there with you.  Spend some time together, work it out, feel better.

AARRGGGHHH 

RIP Mike

It's been a wild week for me, with weddings and injuries and such, so I haven't been able to do this thing for a minute.  I was gonna post something else but then I heard Mike of The ExAxTx (i'm scared of jellyo and alt-octopus arms gettin bummed about me postin this) just passed, and whatever I was gonna post just pales in comparison to this band.  They were perhaps the greatest punk band to come from Florida.  I'm not trying to think too hard about that one, but no one else is coming to mind.  They wrote short punk songs with top notch classic rock and pop sensibilities and a wicked and casual sense of humor.  Their songs are American classics and you should listen to them.  This is the cassette version of this 10" record.  Thanks for the tunes, Mike, and rest well.

 CLICK THIS

Shameless Others' Promotion

So there's a lot of stuff I would be putting on here that I am not, because these other folks have beat me to the punch (by a few years).  You are highly urged to take advantage of their online archives of lost, rare and happenin tunes.  These pages don't last forever, but the songs will!

REMOTE OUTPOSTS

Remote Outposts is Greg's page and he has uploaded soooo much punk from all over.  Lots of Southern punk, lots of old 90's and 00's bands that only recorded a crappy tape or cd.  Lots of "ex members of ex members of ex...." bands.  One certainty is that this site rules and Greg's writing is engaging and interesting (way more than mine!)

TERMINAL ESCAPE

Robert has played in and driven around tons of bands over the decades and has amassed a gigantic collection of cassette tapes! This blog is exclusively cassettes and he puts them on this site for the masses to enjoy!  Punk music from all over the world, spanning all time periods, with the occasional weirdness to keep things interesting.  He also has a thing for new wave/cold wave/industrial stuff.  An excellent source of music indeed!

What We Want Is Free

Chicago's Articles of Faith is one of my all time favorite punk bands.  They were one of those rare bands where everything came together perfectly and accidentally and forever we will be able to enjoy the amazing music of a few punk kids that one day decided to write some tunes instead of fucking around for once.  Their songs are a perfect combination of aggression and emotion. Hard as fuck, yet with an unbelievable sense of feeling.  They were only around from '81-'85, recorded few records, yet we're still feeling their impact 30+ years later.  Long live Articles of Faith.  This folder is their first two records, What We Want Is Free from '82, and Wait from '83.

I've Got Mine, Do You Have Yours?

Terveet Kadet

How bout one of the first hardcore bands from Finland?  Terveet Kadet formed in 1980 in Tornio, Finland and they just killed it back then.  There is nothing less than excellent in their early records.  Then, time passed, they lost all their members except for the singer, and their records got more and more metallic.  Even more time passed, and they went back to their old sound and played their first US shows ever this year and now everyone loves them again!  Cool!  Here's two really awesome 7"s by Terveet Kadet from the early 80's.  Their name means "Healthy Hands."  Weird!

Ääretön Joulu (1982)

Terveet Kadet II (1981)

Spitboy

Holy cow, what an important band!  Spitboy was an all-female hardcore band during a time where hardcore was a super-dudely clubhouse with every deterrent for female involvement except a "No Girls Allowed" sign posted.   Spitboy was from the Bay Area during the early 90's and all you have to do is Google search them and you'll find endless accounts more personal than mine about what an impact this band had on people's lives.  They were a huge influence on everybody, regardless of sexuality or identity, and they got people thinking and helped make punk a more open space (it's still not perfect, if you couldn't tell).  Oh and they fucking rocked so hard.  This is their full length record, True Self Revealed from 1993.

In Your Face!

ps. I still have every Spitboy 7" in my distro, Cesspool Sounds, and I am very disappointed in you all for not buying them.

Assfactor 4

It's time for another Southern favorite!  I love Southern hardcore more than maybe anything, it's what I grew up with and I will never not listen to Antischism, In/Humanity, Kakistocracy, Damad, Karst, Initial State and the like.  Assfactor 4 was from Columbia, South Carolina during the 90's.  I never got to see them but I hear they were a force to be reckoned with live.  Sonically, they tend to get lumped in with the screamo crowd, but I think they sound more like a hardcore version of Unwound...guitar lines weave all over the place in the same way, and there's no "brutality for the sake of brutality" that screamo bands tended to fall into.  But yeah, Assfactor 4...hell of a band name, too. This is their entire discography split into two folders. 58 songs / 2 = 29 songs in each folder.  You lucky dog.

ASSFACTOR 1

ASSFACTOR 2

So Much Hate

So Much Hate was a hardcore punk band from Oslo, Norway.  They really get my juices flowin.  The styles are all over the place...you can hear bits of metal and classic rock and folk tossed into their 80's hardcore punk style...I especially love the melodic parts that seem to come out of nowhere.  When they turn it up to full speed, they remind me of Poison Idea...it's raging punk, but with talented guitar players and solos and stuff...they'll throw a Maiden-esque dual guitar part right on top of licks that could come straight off a Skynyrd record.  Just listen to it, it's good.  This is Blind Alley, their second LP from 1988.

It's So Easy To Ruin It All

Death SS

Alright, it's been mostly punk (and will continue to be mostly punk..hey, it's just who I am) and maybe that's a bummer?  Maybe a curveball is overdue?  Okay...Here's Death SS, an Italian metal band...or "horror music" if you were to ask them...they've been around off and on since 1979 and had at least a bajillion different members...Steve Sylvester on vocals and Paul Chain on guitar being two of the more notable ones.  This is a 7" called Evil Metal and it's highly regarded by Death SS fans.  It's also from 1983, and I guess I have a weird and accidental '83 obsession, because it seems like everything I'm putting on here is from that year.  There's also a bonus song from some compilation I threw in the folder for you.  Enjoy this strange and melodramatic metal music.

Evil Metal 

Crucifix

Oh man, I sometimes forget about the bands I love the most, and I forgot about Crucifix for a while a few years ago.  Luckily I remembered this record, Dehumanization, exists.  I put it in my earholes at least once a week.  It's just as good as your Black Flag and Minor Threat records.  Cambodian-born singer, Sothira Pheng, really makes Crucifix for me.  His vocals are spewed and sprayed out all over the music and it sounds just so awfully good.  Fast, heavy and aggressive, but chaotic and with the sense of everything about to totally fall apart...kinda like how life feels sometimes.  Crucifix was around from 1980 to 1984, and this record came out in '83.  Thanks Crucifix.

It's Our Choice

The Comes

The Comes' No Side is definitely a necessary listen for folks interested in Japanese punk.  The singer, Chitose, is a badass woman-in-charge on this record.  Her shouty, gravelly vocals bounce all over and add urgency to the tight and rockin punk songs the band kicks out..the riffs are really good and classic in their own right, they kind of give me an early 80's California type feeling.  No Side is from 1983 and there's really no reason you aren't listening to this right now.  It's that awesome.  It was repressed at one point as a split with THIS RECORD on the other side.  I always thought that was cool.  People from this band were also in Lip Cream, who you should also check out.

COME!

Look at how awesome the cover art is.

Declino

I really can't stop listening to Italian punk.  Declino, from Turin, were one of the best.  I think they shared members with Negazione?  This is their first 7", Controproduzioni, from 1983.  Enjoy!

RIVOLTA

Abraham Cross

I've been real busy lately with life things and wish I hadn't neglected this shit....as an attempt at amends here's some extremely dark and brutal punk rock from the champions of crasher crust, Abraham Cross from Tokyo, Japan.  I don't have much to say about this band, as I know very little about them, except for that every time I listen to this tape I just get a little slackjawed, ya know?   They are just that much more brutal than pretty much every other punk band...but listen to that guitar, the riffs are almost psychedelic in their noisiness and sometimes songs just fall apart into dark feedback.  Abraham Cross were masters of creating atmosphere, especially for a crusty punk band, and their songs take me to frighteningly dark places..on the other hand, the song "Message from Forever" is just straight up beautiful.  Thanks to Terminal Escape for sharing this tape.

End of Time!

1905

This is a record I used to listen to every day about a decade ago...1905's Voice.  It's a very earnest and political album that immediately takes me back to a time of punk when people would read spoken word poetry between songs and scream without mics and cry and stuff....people just don't do these things anymore, for better or worse.  For me, it was a very malleable and formative time, and I ate that shit up, for better or worse.  Most of the records I got into from that era have long been sold and forgotten about, but this one sticks around for me.  The songs are well written, the guitar playing is inventive, the vocals (sung and screamed) are diverse and impassioned, with lyrics that perfectly represented you for your AIM "away" message. and they spice up the record with changes in pace like a piano instrumental and campfire-y acoustic song.  This is a very good record that digs a little deeper than most.

Voice

Ultracore

Here is one of the nastiest, gnarliest, ugliest, most despicable sounding bands to come out of the 80's.  Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers of Pisa, Italy!   I can't think of anything else to say about this band except that they kinda sound to me like if Black Flag (i really try not to toss the Flag references around lightly) got faster and darker instead of slower and darker, but with way more awesome vocals, seriously Syd's vocals are mindbendingly excruciating in the best way.  CCM are one of the greatest of all time, you best believe it.  This is a collection of 30 songs, split into 2 folders, for your difficulty.  Enjoy!

CCM Part 1

CCM Part 2

You Are Number One

I gotta rush to work, so I don't have many words for you, other than keep that head up, there is someone out there who thinks you are the greatest.  If recently no one has let you know this incredibly important fact, let The GAIA tell you...YOU ARE NUMBER ONE!...this record rules, plain and simple (except for the cover song, i could do without that one)

Have a good day!

Filth

This Filth did not destroy everything, their list was quite short, and they lived in Holland rather than the Bay Area.  These are some super catchy straightforward punk rock songs from '78-'80.   If ya like punk rock in its simpler forms you will like this.  If you like plain ol' good rock n roll songs you will like this.  The Dutch Filth only put out two 7"s, both included in the link for your ease...The first is my favorite, "Don't Hide Your Hate" is one of the most infectious songs ever.  The second 7" is a little punker and rougher and is a split with an English punk band called Discharge and no, it's not that Discharge, either.  I didn't include the Discharge tracks but if you're dyin to have 'em I'll see what I can do. 

Don't Hide It

Descolada

Some more ancient Asheville stuff for ya'll.  Descolada was the first local band I ever saw (I think) and they were a very powerful thing to witness, especially to my young, not-yet-totally-corrupted ears/brain.  Their music has been compared to a lot of disparate bands, like Godspeed, Neurosis, Swans and the ilk, but even though the members listen to those aforementioned bands, Descolada was more concise, and existed in a more urgent realm than most post-rock/noise/metal/whatever bands.  They could cover all types of dynamic range and sonic structures, but didn't take 10 minutes a song to do so!  They were a four piece, of drums, bass, guitar and violin, with minimal vocals punching through every now and again...and by minimal I mean there aren't many vocal parts, there was nothing minimal about the vocals themselves.  The drummer, Tony, would scream his damn lungs out without the aid of a microphone, and you could still easily hear them over the (very loud) amplifiers.  I wonder if he ever straight up passed out on the drum stool.  The people in this band (on this recording) all still live here and play in quality bands such as Soft Opening, Judas Horse, Skullthunder, US Christmas and more, but we all think it's about damn time Descolada just reformed and crushed our heads once again.  This is their one and only album.

Talk Perty

here's some videos...you can spot me in the first one, as well as the record shelf with the NOTHING sticker that now lives in my room.