This would’ve been the column where we told you which bands we made a drunken fool of ourselves talking to at Punk Rock Bowling, but we just got drunk and fooled ourselves once again into thinking people may actually want to read our words about music.
Todd Congelliere runs Recess Records out of San Pedro, CA. He opened up a spot called The Sardine and we’re bummed we didn’t get to drive across the bridges from Long Beach to see a show there before this no-go anywhere nightmare began. Anyway, Todd’s got a podcast called Terminal Island Lockdown, and each episode is about as long as a round trip from our place to Liberation Brewing Co. on the other side o’ town, where we can still pick up essential beers from some friends’ struggling brew business (and where the John Brown Ale is named for the abolitionist, and is absolutely deliciousness).
Todd’s Terminal Island Lockdown led us to discover the Bandcamp page of Underground Government Records.
We went looking for a song by The Grumpies that played on the Lockdown, and ended up spending about three hours listening to this Japanese label’s freak scene of head swingin’ rock and punk offerings. Here’s a couple highlights:
We’d already heard SoCal bands like Audacity and Shark Pants, of which Underground Government has some fine offerings. Automatic Pinner by Shark Pants has riffs like electro-shock jolts, and should be played at maximum voltage. Rips. You’ll want to write a kung fu parody flick just to use the song “Kung Fool” in a fight montage. Get on that. You know, Shakespeare wrote King Lear while under quarantine for the Black Plague, and I bet he bitched about staying home less than a lot of people nowadays.
Split 7” b/w God Equals Genocide and No People: The two songs from God Equals Genocide (and you thought there were no more good punk band names) have a gritty Crass-style loud-but lo-fi punk that’s kinda like some bathroom-bred love spawn of X and the Germs (coulda happened!). No People have some quiet circus organ breathing good vibes all over their prickling guitar and wah-wah vox. Interesting stuff.
There’s the Japanese acoustic bedroom pop of The Weddings, and The Fleshies songs are made from what was dripping off that rooftop where The Replacements were sitting on the Let It Be cover.
Brazil UFO (we think that’s the name of the band. It’s written on the top of the underwear on the photo on the album. Every other lettering is in Japanese): These are covers of classic punk songs sung in Japanese. Well, they are if you’re on your seventh beer. Excellent punk music with a guitar of the wild Greg Ginn variety getting scuzzy all over.
Belly Button is bubble gum pogo pop rock jumper. The lyrics are sung in Japanes by a fierce female. Fast n fun.
Kill a few hours on this Bandcamp site and your ears will be rewarded.
Hope vs. Hate Records
Balance is everything, so keep your music fuckin’ brutal and be kind. In that spirit, here’s a massive benefit compilation of metal (and, as they say, metal-adjacent) music from all over the world, put together by a Scottish label. Proceeds go towards Amnesty International.
This digital-only release has 58 tracks and our sketchy math puts it at about a five-hour running time. Perfect for that long road trip to nowhere this summer!
The bands tend toward black and death metal, with some great branches into hypnotic and atmospheric styles, as well as some good ol’ fashioned hardcore grinders.
This is no primer, it’s a dissertation on modern underground metal. Abstract: Those Keep Music Evil stickers that were popular at the record shop we worked at in the late ‘90s worked. The scene is healthy. Well, it would be if it wasn’t for this damn virus. Being the passive dabbler in the dark metal arts that we are, we listened to this over the course of four days and took shabby notes.
Necropanther has anthematic guitar leads, and the ganrliest bubbling black phlegm vocals.
England’s Allfather have the best Bandcamp bio: “Beards. Metal. Fuck You.” Their track “Citadels” has burly riffs that feel like the mean offspring of old NYHC bands. Clean and crunchy.
American band Of Wolves has an awesome manic sound that your friend in the Jesus Lizard shirt will love. Kaddish, from Scotland, tone it down (relatively) with a sound that has a Dischord Records intense-art vibe. This is all intense art when you think about it, but I guess what I’m saying is these guys could’ve opened for Rites of Spring.
“Western Medecine” by the English band Geist has some hardcore screaming vocals and a thrash metal intensity. I could cut and paste that description for about ten other bands.
Sweden’s Extinction has a guitar groove that could have been born in the drained pools of Venice, but that gets all properly screwed with timing changes and slathered in deep growls.
Another Sweedish band, The Mountain, go fuckin’ swirling-pounding nuts and then end their track with the poet Charles Bukowski talking about his first fight.
There is so, so, so much more on this compilation. It’s about ten bucks. If you want to know what’s happening in metal that’s not made by assholes, this is where to start.
You may not have heard of the names Dennis and Lois unless you’re a fan of deep cuts by the Manchester band Happy Mondays. Dennis and Lois (no last names given) are the superest of super fans, and now there’s a documentary about their life of going to shows and hanging out with bands. They live in Brooklyn and started their journey by asking Arturo Vega, the man responsible for The Ramones’ iconic eagle logo, if he needed help selling merch at CBGB. From there, they became concert addicts of the highest order, and fell in love with the city of Manchester and its long list of musical progeny. They travel there, it seems, about as often as you went to the market before the lockdown. They managed to befriend everyone from Peter Hook to The Happy Mondays (who met the duo when they hooked the band up with some much needed weed during a NYC tour stop) to The Stone Roses. The doc yields kind words and stories of the couple’s generosity (Andy O’Rourke of The Smiths says they were “the sofa to the stars”) from all sorts of artists and you watch the now-grey couple enjoy some concerts.
What Dennis and Lois did is what any music fan wishes they would or could have done. The moral of the story is if you want to have a song written about you, and eventually a documentary made about you, for simply being a decent person who’s addicted to music, then be kind to the opening bands and share your weed, and maybe your couch, with them. Apple and Amazon are where you’ll find it.
Finally, there’s a great doc about Joe Strummer from 2007 called The Future Is Unwritten. It’s on Hulu for a bit, and since you’ve got nothing better to do, watch it and learn.
Good stuff in here!