Monday, January 30, 2023

wow what a show/122 hrs of fear


 NOW UPDATED WITH INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING RATE


i started this mag because of feeling isolated and lonely at the end of the world during quarantine and missing the camaraderie of a show... the music/the chaos/the boredom, all the different parts that make it a whole. The feeling of waiting for something to happen, of missing out, good times and end times, sneaking in, mindless violence, the experiences that change your life and the ones that make it seem like an endless purgatorial ooze. Seeing all the wild things people were posting to social media only to immediately disappear into the vortex made me want to make something concrete-one of my friends posted some pictures he took of Flipper when he was 12 in 1982, another replied in response to a COC t shirt I was wearing in a photo a story about getting mugged for his skateboard after a 1985 show-so those are in my zine now, but I also have stories about people sneaking into Prince shows for rich people, doing LSD at a Daddy Yankee show in Coney Island... escaping a riot... 122 Hours of Fear: a magazine where the audience is as important as the band, maybe more so...  
Cover photo of the Zero Boys by Martin Crudo / lettering by Eugene Terry



MARTIN CRUDO • CHRIS KILLIP • TOBI VAIL•LIZ HARRIS • BEN TROGDON • ELLIE MORAN•BROOKS HEADLEY • OSA ATOE • JESS SCOTT•JESSE MICHAELS • SAM RYSER • BOB NICKAS•KENDRA GAETA • JEAN NAGAI • ADAM OPET• ETHAN SWAN • TONY MOLINA • DAN LACTOSE•JENN PELLY • SAM REISS • JESSE PEARSON•NICK RELPH • GABRIEL FRANCIS • EM AULL•FRANK MARCHI • CANCER CARL • JOLIE M-A•BRYONY BEYNON • BRACE BELDEN • KAPPY •RICH JACOBS • EUGENE TERRY • EMILY RYAN•ALICIA VANDEN HEUVEL • FELIX VON HAVOC•AMBROSE NZAMS • JONATHAN BROKENBROW • GOLNAR NIKPOUR • ERICA DAWN LYLE • ADRIAN REW • KIM THOMPSON • ZAC DAVIS• DEBORAH DXSTROY • ANDY CORONADO•KEVIN MCCARTHY • VIRGINIA ZWANZGER •CLARK ALLEN  •  STAN WRIGHT •  ERIK SUTCH•VIOLETA HINOJOSA • ERIC BUTTERWORTH • SAM LEFEBVRE • KEN SANDERSON • ED ZED •JESSICA SAPPINGTON • SONYA KATCHER•ROTTEN RON READY • KATIE ALICE GREER• ANDREAS LORETAN • PAOLO BONTEMPO•AMY BROWNE • RYAN NAIDEAU • JASON FOX•JAMIE JOHNS • AJ MCGUIRE • MIKE BERDAN•ZANE MORRIS • KATIE GREEN • ICBM REPORT
Magazine will ship media mail to the US / weighs close to a pound! 
INTERNATIONAL RATE A UNIFIED $25 dollars to all countries that are not the US because the magazine weighs close to a pound sorry!!!



cutnpasted from the contents page below!
DEBORAH DXSTROY: 80s USHC PENPAL
JESSE MICHAELS: FLIPPER, BERKELEY CA 1981

TOBI VAIL: THE WIPERS EVERGREEN COLLEGE OLYMPIA, 1984

LIZ HARRIS: LIGHTNING BOLT, OAKLAND, 2003

BEN TROGDON: CHILE SCENE REPORT

CHRIS KILLIP: THE STATION NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE UK 1985

KAPPY: NIRVANA UNPLUGGED NYC 1993 

KIM THOMPSON: RITES OF SPRING / BABES IN TOYLAND

DAN LACTOSE: MELVINS 1989 MAYBE 1990

STAN WRIGHT: CORROSION OF CONFORMITY VIRGINIA BEACH 1987

TONY MOLINA: REDWOOD CITY, CA 2017

ELLIE MORAN: DCHC

JESSE PEARSON: JANES ADDICTION, UPPER DARBY, 1990

ERIK SUTCH: PRINCE, NYC 2008

SAM RYSER: COMING TO TOWN, SLOVENIA, 2015

FELIX VON HAVOC: BLACK FLAG,MEAT PUPPETS,GOVERNMENT ISSUE,NIG-HEIST, MD 1984

JESSICA SAPPINGTON: PUNK IN THE BAY AREA, 1983

ETHAN SWAN: DISSECTION (BUSH) ROCHESTER, NY,1995

VIRGINIA ZWANZGER, ROLLING STONES CHILE, 2016

JEAN NAGAI: INCAPACITANTS, TOKYO

SAM REISS: INQUISITION,NYC

ZANE MORRIS: JOEY RAMONE ON THE REZ, ARIZONA 1997

KENDRA GAETA: THE PEECHEES ,CHAPEL HILL, 1996

RICH JACOBS: SWIZ, DENVER,1988

ROTTEN RON READY:TEENAGE LOBOTOMIES AND LESSONS IN VIOLENCE / EARLY 80s BAY AREA THRASH

JOLIE M-A: DADDY YANKEE CONEY ISLAND, 2017

VIOLETA HINOJOSA: GOGO/BAGS MEXICO CITY 2021

ZAC DAVIS: HENRY GRIMES, MILFORD GRAVES, PETER BROTZMANN, AMIRI BARAKA,ROB BROWN,WILLIAM PARKER, SOHO, NYC 2003

ADRIAN REW: ACID HOUSE PRIMER

NICK RELPH: SPENCER SWEENEY & EYE, 3-SECOND SHOW, W15TH ST, NYC 2005

BOB NICKAS: THE FALL, NYC, 1998

JONATHAN BROKENBROW: BILL ORCUTT CHRIS CORSANO LONDON 2019

JENN PELLY: PARAGRAPHS ON TURNSTILE 2021

FRANK MARCHI: MELVINS 1992 BERKELEY

KATIE GREEN:I LIKE YOUR T SHIRT WE SHOULD BE FRIENDS

ERIC BUTTERWORTH: INEPSY WARM WATER COVER, SAN FRANCISCO CA 

GOLNAR NIKPOUR

ED ZED: UK SUBS, NEW MALDEN UK 2002

BRACE BELDEN: SUICIDAL TENDENCIES MUNICIPAL WASTE PETALUMA CA 2007

KEN SANDERSON: ILL REPUTE SAN LUIS OBISPO 1983

MARTIN CRUDO: CHICAGO, 2021

ALICIA VANDEN HEUVEL: BELLE & SEBASTIAN, SAN FRANCISCO 2001

SAM LEFEBVRE: TEENAGE PUNKS ON SHROOMS

JAMIE JOHNS GUNS N ROSES 2012 NYC

AJ MCGUIRE: COLD WORLD BROOKLYN 2021

ERICA DAWN LYLE

OSA ATOE: HYSTERICS, NEW ORLEANS, 2012

ANDY CORONADO: CIRCUS LUPUS, GILMAN STREET BERKELEY 1991

EMILY RYAN: SNEAKING IN

MIKE BERDAN

BRYONY BEYNON: NEKRA, LONDON, 2021

KATIE ALICE GREER: REGRETTABLE LIVE SHOWS

PAOLO BON TEMPO: REEL BIG FISH/STREETLIGHT MANIFESTO, MA 2011

BRIAN BAYNES: LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS, RICHMOND VIRGINIA 2014

ANDREAS LORETAN: MY FRENEMY THE PIT

RYAN NAIDEAU: RAINER MARIA, LONG ISLAND 2001

JASON FOX

AMBROSE NZAMS: NIGHT RUINING CLARK ALLEN:PUNK HOME THEATER

BROOKS HEADLEY

ART FROM: EM AULL / SONYA KATCHER: HOLD MY COAT/ICBM FAN PAGE/GABRIEL FRANCIS / JESS SCOTT/AMY BROWNE /ADAM OPET/ EUGENE TERRY/KEVIN MCCARTHY/jonny brokenbow


Saturday, October 22, 2022

122 Hours of Fear

i started this mag because of feeling isolated and lonely at the end of the world during quarantine and missing the camaraderie of a show... the music/the chaos/the boredom, all the different parts that make it a whole. The feeling of waiting for something to happen, of missing out, good times and end times, sneaking in, mindless violence, the experiences that change your life and the ones that make it seem like an endless purgatorial ooze. Seeing all the wild things people were posting to social media only to immediately disappear into the vortex made me want to make something concrete-one of my friends posted some pictures he took of Flipper when he was 12 in 1982, another replied in response to a COC t shirt I was wearing in a photo a story about getting mugged for his skateboard after a 1985 show-so those are in my zine now, but I also have stories about people sneaking into Prince shows for rich people, doing LSD at a Daddy Yankee show in Coney Island... escaping a riot... 122 Hours of Fear: a magazine where the audience is as important as the band, maybe more so...  
Cover photo of the Zero Boys by Martin Crudo / lettering by Eugene Terry



MARTIN CRUDO • CHRIS KILLIP • TOBI VAIL•LIZ HARRIS • BEN TROGDON • ELLIE MORAN•BROOKS HEADLEY • OSA ATOE • JESS SCOTT•JESSE MICHAELS • SAM RYSER • BOB NICKAS•KENDRA GAETA • JEAN NAGAI • ADAM OPET• ETHAN SWAN • TONY MOLINA • DAN LACTOSE•JENN PELLY • SAM REISS • JESSE PEARSON•NICK RELPH • GABRIEL FRANCIS • EM AULL•FRANK MARCHI • CANCER CARL • JOLIE M-A•BRYONY BEYNON • BRACE BELDEN • KAPPY •RICH JACOBS • EUGENE TERRY • EMILY RYAN•ALICIA VANDEN HEUVEL • FELIX VON HAVOC•AMBROSE NZAMS • JONATHAN BROKENBROW • GOLNAR NIKPOUR • ERICA DAWN LYLE • ADRIAN REW • KIM THOMPSON • ZAC DAVIS• DEBORAH DXSTROY • ANDY CORONADO•KEVIN MCCARTHY • VIRGINIA ZWANZGER •CLARK ALLEN  •  STAN WRIGHT •  ERIK SUTCH•VIOLETA HINOJOSA • ERIC BUTTERWORTH • SAM LEFEBVRE • KEN SANDERSON • ED ZED •JESSICA SAPPINGTON • SONYA KATCHER•ROTTEN RON READY • KATIE ALICE GREER• ANDREAS LORETAN • PAOLO BONTEMPO•AMY BROWNE • RYAN NAIDEAU • JASON FOX•JAMIE JOHNS • AJ MCGUIRE • MIKE BERDAN•ZANE MORRIS • KATIE GREEN • ICBM REPORT
Magazine will ship media mail to the US / weighs close to a pound! International rates coming soon! If you want more than 5 please email me... 



cutnpasted from the contents page below!
DEBORAH DXSTROY: 80s USHC PENPAL
JESSE MICHAELS: FLIPPER, BERKELEY CA 1981

TOBI VAIL: THE WIPERS EVERGREEN COLLEGE OLYMPIA, 1984

LIZ HARRIS: LIGHTNING BOLT, OAKLAND, 2003

BEN TROGDON: CHILE SCENE REPORT

CHRIS KILLIP: THE STATION NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE UK 1985

KAPPY: NIRVANA UNPLUGGED NYC 1993 

KIM THOMPSON: RITES OF SPRING / BABES IN TOYLAND

DAN LACTOSE: MELVINS 1989 MAYBE 1990

STAN WRIGHT: CORROSION OF CONFORMITY VIRGINIA BEACH 1987

TONY MOLINA: REDWOOD CITY, CA 2017

ELLIE MORAN: DCHC

JESSE PEARSON: JANES ADDICTION, UPPER DARBY, 1990

ERIK SUTCH: PRINCE, NYC 2008

SAM RYSER: COMING TO TOWN, SLOVENIA, 2015

FELIX VON HAVOC: BLACK FLAG,MEAT PUPPETS,GOVERNMENT ISSUE,NIG-HEIST, MD 1984

JESSICA SAPPINGTON: PUNK IN THE BAY AREA, 1983

ETHAN SWAN: DISSECTION (BUSH) ROCHESTER, NY,1995

VIRGINIA ZWANZGER, ROLLING STONES CHILE, 2016

JEAN NAGAI: INCAPACITANTS, TOKYO

SAM REISS: INQUISITION,NYC

ZANE MORRIS: JOEY RAMONE ON THE REZ, ARIZONA 1997

KENDRA GAETA: THE PEECHEES ,CHAPEL HILL, 1996

RICH JACOBS: SWIZ, DENVER,1988

ROTTEN RON READY:TEENAGE LOBOTOMIES AND LESSONS IN VIOLENCE / EARLY 80s BAY AREA THRASH

JOLIE M-A: DADDY YANKEE CONEY ISLAND, 2017

VIOLETA HINOJOSA: GOGO/BAGS MEXICO CITY 2021

ZAC DAVIS: HENRY GRIMES, MILFORD GRAVES, PETER BROTZMANN, AMIRI BARAKA,ROB BROWN,WILLIAM PARKER, SOHO, NYC 2003

ADRIAN REW: ACID HOUSE PRIMER

NICK RELPH: SPENCER SWEENEY & EYE, 3-SECOND SHOW, W15TH ST, NYC 2005

BOB NICKAS: THE FALL, NYC, 1998

JONATHAN BROKENBROW: BILL ORCUTT CHRIS CORSANO LONDON 2019

JENN PELLY: PARAGRAPHS ON TURNSTILE 2021

FRANK MARCHI: MELVINS 1992 BERKELEY

KATIE GREEN:I LIKE YOUR T SHIRT WE SHOULD BE FRIENDS

ERIC BUTTERWORTH: INEPSY WARM WATER COVER, SAN FRANCISCO CA 

GOLNAR NIKPOUR

ED ZED: UK SUBS, NEW MALDEN UK 2002

BRACE BELDEN: SUICIDAL TENDENCIES MUNICIPAL WASTE PETALUMA CA 2007

KEN SANDERSON: ILL REPUTE SAN LUIS OBISPO 1983

MARTIN CRUDO: CHICAGO, 2021

ALICIA VANDEN HEUVEL: BELLE & SEBASTIAN, SAN FRANCISCO 2001

SAM LEFEBVRE: TEENAGE PUNKS ON SHROOMS

JAMIE JOHNS GUNS N ROSES 2012 NYC

AJ MCGUIRE: COLD WORLD BROOKLYN 2021

ERICA DAWN LYLE

OSA ATOE: HYSTERICS, NEW ORLEANS, 2012

ANDY CORONADO: CIRCUS LUPUS, GILMAN STREET BERKELEY 1991

EMILY RYAN: SNEAKING IN

MIKE BERDAN

BRYONY BEYNON: NEKRA, LONDON, 2021

KATIE ALICE GREER: REGRETTABLE LIVE SHOWS

PAOLO BON TEMPO: REEL BIG FISH/STREETLIGHT MANIFESTO, MA 2011

BRIAN BAYNES: LUMPY AND THE DUMPERS, RICHMOND VIRGINIA 2014

ANDREAS LORETAN: MY FRENEMY THE PIT

RYAN NAIDEAU: RAINER MARIA, LONG ISLAND 2001

JASON FOX

AMBROSE NZAMS: NIGHT RUINING CLARK ALLEN:PUNK HOME THEATER

BROOKS HEADLEY

ART FROM: EM AULL / SONYA KATCHER: HOLD MY COAT/ICBM FAN PAGE/GABRIEL FRANCIS / JESS SCOTT/AMY BROWNE /ADAM OPET/ EUGENE TERRY/KEVIN MCCARTHY/jonny brokenbow




Friday, July 3, 2020

A was for anarchy/Am I Going Insane/The Manic Ride

This month has been a fever pitch of MANIA thanks to a new prescription so I apologize to all my friends and compatriots I have pummeled with my frantic information needs and idea bombardments, my skin feels like it is coated w electrical currents and I am running relentlessly in an attempt to deal but unfortunately my reality is just a child flicking channels at 5am at the end of time right now. Anyway here are my musical manias! I have been experiencing a lot of nostalgia for my teen existence which was fun / wretched / desolate, much like the rest of my existence. I grew up in Brentford, a suburb of London that got bombed during the second world war bc of the mostly industrial landscape and when it was rebuilt the part I resided in looked like this picture
teen tape box at my mom's.
and was not populated by people that were intrigued w my various obsessions, hence the eternal "desolation" feeling. I spent my time skateboarding, mailordering zines n records and going to punk and hip hop shows and listening to tapes and records in my room imagining all the cool things that were happening in places I wasn't. I didn't use a computer until I was in college in the late 90s (actually made fun of one of my friends for having an email address like it was a nerd alert bc I was so clueless), so only communicated via tape trades etc, in real life humans few to none of whom in my area as detailed above were interested in the things that consumed me. In short it was harder to find out about things I might like and even harder to find like minded people to nerd out such things with.I am currently writing something around this for another outlet, maybe my favorite zine I have read in 100 years?! maybe the only zine in america.... demystification!




ORDER IT BC IT IS EVERYTHING YOU NEED







we continue on w what is essentially a repository of my maniac thoughts on sounds I am consumed by... or things I chanced upon. At the start of this month I started out obsessing over revolution summer, listening to my rites of spring tape that one of the dudes I worked w at rough trade recs when I was a teenager gave me. remembering the feeling of looking at the tiny photos of them in the liner notes and for some reason thinking that DC was a weird forest paradise w only perfect HC emanating. a wild and utopian world created by this sound...being the maniac psycho that I am right now I immediately WANTED MORE and started listening to all the surrounding bands that started post or during ROS (After Words/Bells Of//Rain etc) most of which don't hold a candle but I got a cool top secret for my ears only demo as a result of my mania from one o those bands and managed to trade the bl'ast discography for the RAIN 12" another perfect teenage sound from DC...
this image is from a HC flier website but it's actually from a Jigsaw zine written by the wild genius tobi vail/not a flier/put a flier in a frame/don't you know that's not my name/ rites of spring forever
After that I got consumed by the FURY 45 on THD. A perfect hardcore record! Sometimes I listened to it and wondered why HC kept going once it had reached this zenith! Wild and destructive freedom!! Sounds like it's going to explode / kill. Lyrics about vengeance and death!  For most people the first time they would have encountered this would be the random song on the second SWIZ LP, however in 1989 or whenever that record came out I was a mere child that did not know about DCHC so my encounter was via an obsession w Chris Thomson that developed also via  Rough Trade when a boy I thought was cute bought the first Circus Lupus record, such a corny reason to check out a band but I am truly glad I did. Anyway, regardless SWIZ forever, FURY forever, off the pigs and make hardcore that sounds like it's gonna kill/destroy or just don't.
(pictured: my last teenage skateboard w swiz x-girl and bikini kill allegiances outlined and also Michelle Noel's skateboard w Minor Threat/Seven Seconds/xWINDOFCHANGEx spraypainted more on that later)



This wasn't really an obsession, just a cool random discovery but...
Smoke and Mirrors by Pitchman

this early 90s DC band (incidentally made up of teenagers) would have been a TEEN OBSESSION had their tape actually come out, sort of sounding like a huggy bear/fisticuffs bluff/gravity style furtive art HC collision and featuring Chuck Bettis from Metamatics whose LP was also a teen obsession ("makes a lotta sense to kill a cop" etc etc). I looked them up bc of listening to a copy of the Rodeo Riders comp tape that Kim Thompson of cupid car club/skull kontrol etc put out in this era, which also has her band w Mike Fellows (called getwaway car) and the dreamy Star Sign Scorpio which is her and Kathi from Bikini Kill (did they make a tape?! coolest duo) and of course circus lupus covering the avengers....



After this beginning of June era (which also included a brief art monk construction/lincoln/edge-emo(the song thursday by turning point)/watermark revival) I went on a "Despite the fact I worked at Revelation in the late 90s I haven't really actually given much NYHC outside of the age of quarrel 10" and victim in pain a chance" spiral. Things that resonated w my destroyed mind: Krakdown 45!  1st rest in pieces LP! breakdown demo! Side by Side never got listened to bc I don't like YOT or GB and assumed it was more of the same, was wrong. My research confirmed the fact that the best NYHC remains the Straight Ahead 12"which thanks to the amoeba dollar bin I own a bootleg 7" copy of.
1)the age of quarrel 10" is a perfect record and I am annoyed I didn't try and buy one now everythng is three thousand dollars, got complacent listening to the MRR archive copy when I lived in the compound I guess. anyway if anyone wants to trade something so I can live my dreams and own this please email layla (dot) gibbon (at) gmail. I have been running every night to this and it is the perfect sound for my unraveling mind
2)the Our Gang sweater





3) I was trying to locate an interview I did w Dave Jones of Victim in Pain/Metal Abuse etc but maybe this is just a weird refraction of memory bc he used to call MRR a lot when I was coord?! nothing is real.
4) the child drummer from bold. one of my friends (katie) had a German pressing of the first Into Another LP that came with a press release explaining that this was a new group featuring "the child drummer from bold." between manic UNDERLORD listens we competed over which one of us was the actual child drummer. I tried to get her to send me a scan of the press release during this summerlong brain descent into the abyss but she no longer owns it! A disgrace! a true crime, I am the child drummer from bold as is documented below in this scripture from one of my teenage zines. time to listen to UNDERLORD! an anthem for bored youth seeking only riffs.
teenage fanzine CHIMPS presented as evidence by real child drummer from bold



THIS IS THE END FOR NOW more to come as a post DISSIDENT AGGRESSOR existence is unpacked and addressed. APOLOGIES FOR OVERUSE OF THE SAME THREE WORDS WHAT CAN I SAY

YOU COULD
Prison=death/free all prisoners now, irrespective of this health crisis! end carcaral justice NOW!

MOUNT RUSHMORE NO MORE BAIL FUND /LIBERATION NOW

Sunday, May 10, 2020

ROCK FOR NO REASON!


how many bands are so studied, have so many well made plans that end in a most depressing and dismal result! I will now tell these bands study the WUFFY DOGS they had it figured out!
Sit! Lay down! Play dead! Rolllover! I ordered this 45 reissue from GONER RECORDS when I was grabbing my PRIMO! LP, I saw it on the main page and was intrigued, how wuffy can a girl be? well... I can't afford an original but I shall bathe only in the wuffiest of sounds from now on out.
One of the tyrannies of our current age is the feeling of watching life through a screen, things that happened things, that might happen, things that won't happen, we are all trapped in plasma waiting for a new reality that seems so wretched... well, while trapped why not watch two and a half long VHS videos transferred to youtube of kids stuck at a fest in fucking Indiana in 1987!!!! You can watch the hated if you pay attention to the commenters or you can watch the kids that set up the fest argue about things that FEEL SO VERY REAL to anyone who has ever organized anything in the context of DIY punk or alternative business structures etc etc and so on... the first five minutes of this video set me on a spiral of despair / years thrown away and for what.... WHO WILL BRING THE MARKERS ON JUDGEMENT DAY!!!!!! rock FOR NO REASON!!!!!!!! ( 1:34:00 The Hated per commenters on youtube. also did you spend the entire 90s w people whispering about the Hated Box set or Hated acoustic but somehow also managed to live thru the 90s never actively enjoying a hated song?! or just me?! ROCK FOR NO REASON!!!!!!! maybe numero will do the hated boxset and everything will make sense!)

when I worked feverishly at MRR as content coord one of the mags I put together was an all fanzine special, we had access to an insane early 80s zine archive (not MRRs tragically!) one of the zines that brought me most joy was Breakfast Without Meat, I think we only saw two issues but one had a blurred out black flag interview and the other had a response to fan outrage at the fact the interview wasn't legible with another unreadable reprint.Anyway my vague memories of Breakfast Without Meat have remained with me to this day as "what a zine should be!" made in ye olde early 80s by Gregg Turkington. My comrade Vinnie, who helped making the zine flashback zone just sent me a message re a Meat Puppets video they posted on their youtube channel, coincidentally filmed at Target Video (me and vinnie interviewed Joe from Target for the MRR film issue) so it's all connected brothers and sisters and apparently also according to Gregg's wikipedia the Meat Puppets were long time contributors to his fanzine.. anyway this video is insane, no words can explain what you are about to experience, the meat puppets are a treasure and a pleasure and it doesn't make sense but here it is watch the whole thing, breakfast without meat! I watched meat puppets play for free in golden gate park for an alarmingly huge crowd of jam band heads but they played my fave songs off II and it was also a pleasure and a treasure. If only they played the first 7" still maybe they will?!
I frequently wake up with bobby soxx "i gotta pee pee in the disco mommy" running through my brains what does it all mean? happy mothers day be free w your pee?! I also like the 90s disco remix version for when your crowd is less rustic. We are currently listening to the insane united mutation reissue that radio raheem just did. truly mutant sounds for skulls and the barely alive. Sohrab Habibion just uploaded a bunch of sick DC live shows from when he was a teenage show setter upper/VHS filmer and there are so many sick things! (one last wish! The Hated! MOSS ICON!!!!
 



I have been also enjoying the gentle sounds of evie sands, bobby gentry, Eduardo Mateo

This ends the report! 

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

snoopy in space

 I didn't do a year end top ten for 2019, I liked a lot of music! But living in the face of the end of the world feels impossible and writing about anything seems even worse. I am sure it's detailed in one of my many MRR columns buried in this blog but I started writing about punk when I was 13, my zine was called drop babies, called into action by going to see huggy bear every month and how they gave zines and one sheet art screeds out at every show that were wild and surreal and intoxicating. I only have a couple copies of random issues of my old zine now (but quite sure my mom has them all in the box under her bed) and I switched over to Chimps I think when I was 18 inspired by Germ of Youth fanzine by Justin Trosper, and Tobi's Jigsaw and the feeling of not seeing my ideas of what a punk could be represented in the sea of emo / sxe and grrrl zines I sent off for every month... Also because I could print hundreds of copies for free w a print scam! When I stopped writing for MRR I wanted to work on my own project, another zine? Something like that? But instead I just lost my mind at endless minimum wage retail jobs in the most expensive city of earth. at any rate I am working on a bunch of projects right now (some of my teenage band skinned teen's recordings that never made it to record are gonna be 45s-relatedly girlsperm my band w marissa and tobi has a new LP coming out this year i tink unless the world ends, but we recorded it last year) working on a collection of old writing and a new zine, so here is a top ten of things I am currently consumed by just for kicks(there are links throughout to hear things but for some reason I can't figure out how to make them a different color so they are more apparent?!)

BETTY AND KAREN-I'm Not Satisfied / Stop And Listen
Two cool teenage girls who wrote these great melancholic pop songs in the 60s, perfect dreamy slices of NYC life, the music makes me think of old school Sesame Street and the world created by the Shangri Las, you can see a gritty city movie through their lyrics, the feeling of freedom and oppression that is the dichotomy of youth! walking through town with nowhere to go and no power or money and yet the world is yours... truly joyous music and the fact they wrote it makes it more perfect to me! you can listen here: one o the girls uploaded it and talks about writing it! I picked up this 45 on a whim for not much $ but it can be expensive.



I first heard about END RESULT maybe about ten years ago when that documentary about Chicago punk of the early ’80s came out. They were easily the most exciting band in the movie, a multi-racial falling apart teenage fuck you to regimental rules-based hardcore with shades of FLIPPER and NO TREND, but made with their own ingredients. In case you want to read someone else’s contextualization of the group, here’s Albini: “END RESULT was truly a band apart… Alan tuned his guitar like a cello… END RESULT had no drummer to keep the beat, because (in Alan’s immortal words) ‘we think our audience can count.’” I immediately took it upon myself to find some recordings, and picked up their LP, Ward, which was not quite reflective of the footage from the movie that was so intoxicating to me. Chicago people kept talking about these mythical tapes from that earlier era that were going to come out, but despite my mania and constant badgering, reader—it never happened! Until now! Here they are! The 1982 tapes I have been hunkering for since 2008! A no wave band at a hardcore show isn’t shocking in 2020, but imagining a legion of Reagan Youth gazing and trying to understand the strange wonders of this mutant sound in between one-two-fuck-you bands is a quiet pleasure! I might be misremembering this, but END RESULT considered themselves a HC band, not a no wave band. What is hardcore, or no wave? And how can we change it so it makes sense at the end of the world? END RESULT has the answers and the questions; this record is a destructive/constructive demonstration of what is possible when you have an idea and are baffled by genre exercises…(get it here) (also this written by me(writing about music is true suffering and horror) on the new MRR website check it out)

I discovered this record on a youtube k-hole, it's so good, like a sorta shop assistants but before them feeling?! like girls at our best dreamscape.... um it's not very expensive either if you gotta have it.


COMET GAIN - Fireraisers Forever LP
This LP came out last year I think and I frantically ordered the limited version from an English record shop, a band my teenage band played with a lot but I didn't truly love until Rachel started singing for them... Perfect C86 mod/punk dream sounds with Subway Sect, Evie Sands and Dan Treacy feelings, nostalgia is powerful and comet gain make their own world with it, an imagined mod universe where alain delon and billy liar form an alliance against th squares...



PRIMO-Sogni LP
this hasn't arrived on US shores yet bc of the tyrannical virus but when it does I will grab one ASAP!  I loved their last record, but this one is even better. Chair's Missing reverberations! More contained Swell Mapsisms?! Four women from Australia making really cool languid but unsettling sounds grab it when you can here's a glimpse




XV - LP
this was in everyone's year end top tens but they only made twenty copies or somethin... also when you are square enough to only find out about something in a year end top ten it usually means it's a g.o.n.e.r. but then my genius friend osa just mailed it to me when I freaked out about not getting one?! truly so generous and cool! anyway this is a really cool sound, sort of like a Morton/pressler midwestern art destruction deconstruction mutation but also sort on UN siltbreeze feel, like a drawing of music, sort of wild genius nothing dreams...




Vivienne Styg 12" 
 This was a tape then a 12" on tall texan that I think is getting repressed? I am not sure if they are from the same genius scene as Chronophage but they are of a similar sensibility sort of nervous confident shambolic punks that are sorta like a SST meat puppets skree or a ukdiy art girl dream like you know they heart roky and 99 records, it has a wild desert feeling, open space sounds a pure dream for quarantine era! oh they are from houston/ chronophage are austin, anyway all mentioned live in expansive dreams

I picked up this record KING OF CULTURE in the amoeba dollar bin a few years ago bc it looked cool, it was a wild/radical nowwave/punk/funk record from early 80s NYC that I played and filed away forgetting about.... then my friend Justin was talking about this band, the stickfigures, which is sorta the best c86ish sound but from way before, just sick bedroom jangle in a cool punk swing w the raddest girl singer, and I managed to get this 45 at WMFU record swap last year, then I found out the same crew were involved in both records?! this one I think is from before they moved to NY, then there's annother one called nonerotic male bonding w the same crew that's sorta wilder pop damage?!   Maybe I have it wrong but it seems like they moved from florida to baltimore and NYC and did a cool band in each town. stick figures is my favorite though, it's a dream!!! i love this 45. there are 5 different covers!

 

I think someone posted this on their instagram and the cover is so wild I had to investigate! It's produced by Brian Wilson from the beach boys and is a post-HONEYS group. I just got this 45 bc the LP seemed like too much filler for me?! and the cover!!! so good . The b-side is the song! so spooky and unearthly and sort of dream/death like just has that dense beach boys losing it feel, sorta weird plastic psyche outs that are heavy and the ending is so good... anyway if you are a brian wilson fan check it out ok




don't you want to move into this lithics video?!



I have also been listening to early recordings by OPAL who I always thought I hated because of that SST LP i picked up and immediately flipped bc it is the music I do not want, but the early recordings re so dreamy and good!! perfect LA sound, 60s in the 80s, a casual / beautiful pop masterpiece! I think the records are OOP and maybe bootlegs?! or expensive?! but maybe they will get reissued?? do as I do an you can check em out on youtube! jukebox of the bored
 
 HAMMERED HULLS 45
This is a dream super group! Alec MacKaye of THE FAITH!!! the subject to change 12" is one of my fave hardcore artifacts! just power and memory and yeah maybe against the VOID side of the split they can't compete but the 12" is perfect! OK and Mary Timony from Autoclave etc (Autoclave being one of the coolest DC groups of the 90s-their recordings got reissued on vinyl last year and you gotta get it! Christina Billotte dreamiest voice in town, beautiful post-punk reality scapes! looks like it's sold out at dischord but amoeba have it) Anyway I love this 45, Alec's voice is the best, I hope they make more records ? the guitar style is the kind of HC i love, reminds me of why I used to buy every dischord release as a teenager in the early 90s! that urgent feeling!

not only but also /PARSNIPDIVORCER TAPE / NOTS LP / JUDY & THE JERKS 45 / COLD BEAT LP

I am reading Sam Macpheeters new book mutations   

also kate zambreno screen tests and charles portis masters of atlantis (which I am not enjoying as much as his other books so it's taking me a long time!!!) I just got some zines from Chris formerly of Huggy bear now of Adulkt a new london HC band via my mom I really enjoyed, Chris Rowley made the best zines in the 90s and the tradition continues! check out reggae chicken the huggy bear collaboration for evidence (here is a weird archive of a page!) also have been listening to a lot of teenage music from my youth, you know frumpies capn jazz NOU fisticuffs bluff unwound and so on so many youtube vortexes secret emo summer



Monday, January 21, 2019

LAYLA TOP TEN 2018 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

LOOKING BACK AT THE END OF THE WORLD


COMET GAIN – “If Not Tomorrow/I Was More of a Mess Then”
Perfect mod punk basement pop dream—for fans of DAN TREACY and Shena MacKay. The B-Side is my song of th year, Rachel’s snotty yet dreamy deadpan vocals carrying the world weary nostalgia of our collapsing youth/Too old to die young etc etc

PRIMO! – “Amici!” LP
Album of the year for me! Like SANDRA BELL playing WIRE songs, in short my dream band, AMICI has the dream like disquiet of YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS instilled in its essence. My words are puny and futile, just buy the record punker.

TABLE SUGAR – “Collected Acknowledgements” LP
Seeing TABLE SUGAR live in 2017 was a career highlight for this brain dead music consumer. TABLE SUGAR are the coolest, the tapes were like an endless birthday party to my brains, and to finally have a 12” in my grips feels utopian. The music is transcendent girl art punk linking up the FOAMS to DRESS UP AS NATIVES in my mind, but this group is not some referential reenactment troupe, they make a sound that is theirs and only theirs. It is as adventurous and dreamlike as the first time you heard the first LILLIPUT LP, in fact my use of the words transcendent and utopian are not a stretch! This is truly a dream, truly an adventure! I want to live in the world that this record has made.

CHILD’S POSE – “Feral” EP
Lost my mind when I first heard this, and instantly ordered the 7” direct from the UK. A band that makes me think “this is what ELASTICA should have done!” Stripped down and direct with the coolest vocal style, art punk scritch guitars a SWELL MAPS-ian rhythm but yeah let’s just go back to those vocals!!! Perfect pop! Perfect punk! This EP is why I am a punk in 2018. 

SCHOOL DAMAGE – “A to X” LP
Their last LP made my last list and there is nothing different about this year, surrounded by the same brutal turmoil, same evidence that Australian art punks are forming some of the coolest concepts in sound… Sounds like some Midwestern art punk band from 1982 in the best possible manner, can’t decide if I like this one more than the last one?! Maybe so? What a group! What a sound! Fans of c86, those Messthetics comps and bands that formed in the wake of the B52s and DEVO in towns across America circa 1981 should immediately investigate. True Layla-core.

TERRY – “I’m Terry”
I have been obsessed with all of the TERRY 45s, but a little less so with their LPs until this one… These songs have an unnerving/unsettling pop feel that makes me think of Chairs Missing. Really. It feels throwaway and casual like the best music, but also insidious and well thought out, earworms with teeth. The lyrics can seem almost like a word game as well as a secret code message to a radical liberation cell. I can’t stop listening to this, and I would advise you to do the same thing with your time and life! Unbelievably good record!

LITHICS – “Mating Surfaces” LP
In which I quote myself from the press release: “A stern danceable sound that summons cut up snapshots of Su Tissue and Mark E Smith, an imagined landscape where Captain Beefheart hits that 99 Records “Too Many Creeps” beat.”

CONSTANT MONGREL – “Living in Excellence” LP
Was so excited to listen to this, I think every other record by this band has made my MRR year end top ten and here we are again…. What a group! Lyrics tear down the cynical bleat of our current political age of extreme delirium and hatred while the sound behind somehow reminds me that swaggering VENOM P STINGER style but maybe also KIRK BRANDON AND THE PACK, just relentless fucking power! The songs are so catchy and sick, desolate and total.

PATOIS COUNCILLORS – “Proper Release” LP (ever/never)
Some sort of sick collision between COUNTRY TEASERS and VERTICAL SLIT. What more could a girl want?

DRINKS – “Hippo Lite” LP
CATE LE BON and TIM PRESLEY making strange glassy Messthetics adventure sound. Playful and cool, a strange pleasure.

RECORDS THAT CAME OUT IN DECEMBER OF 2017 THAT EXIST IN THE WEIRD LIMBO BETWEEN YEAR END TOP TENS
BB EYE – “Headcheese Heartthrob” LP
TOTAL CONTROL – “Laughing at the System” 12”

ENDLESS CONTENDERS: RAYS LP, LUDELLA BLACK LP, COLD MEAT EP, TOUGH CUSTOMER EP, SHIFTERS LP, LIME CRUSH LP, LAVENDER HEX LP, BB AND THE BLIPS LP, LITHICS 45, LAVENDER FLU LP, ALISON STATTON AND SPIKE LP, PHEW/ANA DA SILVA 2xLP, CREMELLERAS 12”, GIRL RAY 45, STIFF LOVE EP, NANDAS EP

REISSUES
VECTOR COMMAND – “System 3” LP
HAND GRENADES “Demo to London” 12” (Last minute entry for reissue of the year!)
JIM SHEPARD – “The Letter Tapes”
INDEX –Originals Vol 1” LP
FRESH MAGGOTS – CD

TAPES (tiny list! I guess I mostly bandcamped demos??)
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Monday, February 12, 2018

20 17 was a bloodbath here's my year end list culled from the pages of MRR

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Layla Gibbon top 2017 records!
What’s the cliché, writing about music is like dancing about art?! There were so many records I flipped out over during this terrible desolate brutal year, I had a list of twenty LPs to whittle down! And that was just the LPs! So many options! I am gonna make a list in the future that includes non MRR reviewable sounds from 2017 too but here are my rants and raves:

TOP RECORDS:
Late entry! Notified about this band’s existence by current Australian correspondent Grace Ambrose and mind was immediately blown apart by its true UKDIY meets mod perfection, I was psychically forced into mailordering immediately upon first listen! Four women from Melbourne who visually seem to have walked out of a teen girl mag circa 1965 making music that brings to mind to most blissful shambolic C-86’d out mod sounds of the TELEVISION PERSONALITIES, but also watching the movie Daisies. Playful subversion that sounds at once wry, charming and acerbic, a garage pop dream pie.

UKDIY directional shamble meets ice cool LA 1978 punk dreams, Candice has the voice to communicate to all other worlds what punk is and then there is that perfect guitar sound, like listening to "Ghost on the Highway" on 45… I only like drums that sound either murderous or collapsing and this is both at once. Oh the allure of PATSY, what a dream, what a group. If you only want to listen to KLEENEX and RED CROSS at this juncture of the end of the world, if you want to hear the sound of sneering delight, of true joyous insurrection this 12” is the eloquent yet snotty answer to all your problems. The way “Society Ape” switches to “Nazi’s Are So Plain” is the stuff dreams are made of. An actual perfect 12” and an easy contender for record of the year. Hardcore.

Someone I know was complaining about all the bands that are current but simulating sounds of cool female directed art punk bands circa 1981, and as my eyes rolled to the back of my head I thought of the past 17 years watching historically accurate reenactment all dude HC bands play the same idea night after night in show spaces across America… Finally! There is an avalanche of genius wild nervous damage sound for all kindsa girls that have ELECTRIC EELS and MALARIA! problems. This does sound like something from one of those Subnormal Girls comps, but that is what I want out of life. I want frantic / nervous energy, collapsing keyboards and sputtering rhythms and cool female vocals over the end of the world Ballardian creep sound. This LP is a breath of air, of ideas and charisma and cool…

NOTS put out three 45s and a live LP in 2017… All were killer of course, but something about this one really set it above the rest, it’s a truly great 45. The A-side is so sick, chopped up antagonistic dada KBD perfection, repetition of the words “Cruel Friend” making the sound even more unrecognizable delirious and frantic! Then the fucking B-Side! With its strange creepy crawly feeling, sort of Dario Argento No Wave art school girls out for blood and fear… That keyboard sound, it’s for female protagonists that can control insects with their minds, truly otherwordly! An image reverse xerox of the times we are stuck in.

I have no idea how I even found this, it didn’t get sent into MRR, but is so exactly my idea of a good time… Girls in the Garage dream snot, imagine the first BANGS 45 if they made an album with Bomp! and avoided the whole major label hair ballad move… Conjure up in your mind the sickest yet sweetest girl group sound through the thick haze of bedroom psyche.  Bubblegum for modernists.

Like listening to DIE KREUZEN backwards, simultaneous no wave buildings collapse hardcore that’s like getting pummeled by the ocean and reading the S.CU.M. Manifesto all at once, fave Bay Area ragers since PIG DNA. Girl geniuses hate cops…

I don’t really know what the deal is with this record, as far as I can tell it was a tape from 2012 that got made into a record this year and the band is from Poland… I am truly grateful a copy made it into the MRR compound, as it is wild and cool and cantankerous and hard to get out of your brain once you’ve heard the strange shapes it presents. It sort of reminds me of a Polish version of VENOM P STINGER?! But it’s way less swaggering than that and more in the direction of a less contained RONDOS or something between those two bands that I am unable to put into words or make sense of?! It’s fucking wild art Eastern European punk and it rules.

Truly great! Title track is a bashed out mix tape must have that fans of music will
clutch to their very beings… Rest of this now classic 45 follows suite with Montana dissonant reality strike on MIKE REP bands, COUNTRY TEASERS, certain eras of the EMBARRASSMENT, VU shambled guitars, direct vocalizations, this is another milestone for your collection. How much art can you take? Only this kind.

I couldn’t decide between this or PALBERTA or BENT or PIERRE ET BASTIEN or GAUCHE but this one won out! Australian music dominates the dreamscape. This sounds like a band that could have played with the MARINE GIRLS featuring people from PARSNIP and AUSMUTEANTS I think?! The keyboards are perfect YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS sound, the male/female vocals are dreamy and this was one of those things where you hear the badcamp and immediately hunt out a US distributor, truly timeless sounds for anorak wearing nostalgists of a certain type…

Coolest Bay Area group with the power to convert an entire disinterested room into wild believers. Watching them play is like riding a time machine back to an era of ESSENTIAL LOGIC, MODETTES and DELTA 5 45s, when punks got taken by the possibilities of dub and ska and funk, while retaining the taut stripped down sensibilities of the DIY ideal… Amber is just a Warhol superstar front person, if Ken Loach was the Warhol?! Cuz she’s real. Real cool. Her voice will make you wanna start fifty nine bands. The way Elyse and Amber interact as the rhythm section and band vocalists is just so fresh, off beat but united in cool and snarl. Andy Human’s guitar has a “Guns of Brixton” devastation affect that will make you wanna dance furiously, ths isn’t a Hellcat records Clash tribute act I promise, it’s like the coolest otherworldly take on things that I love with a millions ideas and references plus the tunes to back it all up. Watch out for the Alexa and Stanley Sax attack…Music for post punk girls and louche rakes that takes down the mediocre reality of the consume or be consumed culture we are doomed to die inside, lofi scratched up punk genius. 

RUNNER UPS:
BENT – EP/ PALBERTA – LP / HEAVY METAL – 2 LP/ LEBENDEN TOTEN – “Static!” 12” / GAUCHE – LP / THE COWBOY – LP / / TERRY – LP / PIERRE ET BASTIEN – LP / PROM NITE – LP / ANDY HUMAN EP / SAYLAVEES EP/ POLICE CONTROL EP / JANITOR SCUM LP / FLESH WORLD – LP / RANK/XEROX – 12” /  SACRED PAWS – LP / / MR WRONG – 12” /RAYS –LP / RAKTA EP


TOP TAPES/DEMOS:
BLANK STATEMENTS, LITHICS, AQUARIUM, TABLE SUGAR, NEON, STIFF LOVE, WARM BODIES, JUDY AND THE JERKS, DOUBLEMINT GUN

Reissues
Y-PANTS LP /NON-BAND LP/ COMET GAIN LPs/ DENDÖ MARIONETTE-LP / NEON – “Neon / Nazi Schatzi” 45/ WRETCHED LP /PIECE WAR 12” / LOOK BLUE GO PURPLE 2xLP / NURSE – LP/ TRUMMERFRAUEN LP/ MORBID OPERA LP