R.I.P.

Well, given that basically all the old stuff is gone and putting up anything new is pointless since it will almost assuredly meet the same fate, this is over as a sharing blog for older records. I'll still share the occasional obscure or local effort but don't come around expecting much anymore. I still have all the old posts on my computer so if you want something, send me an e-mail at camborthwick@gmail.com and I can send it to you. It's been fun I guess

WEAKERTHANS- LEFT & LEAVING

It's been too long! I make no promises about posting more but hey, I'm like a streaky hitter. I'm .224 for my career but I've been known to go on 15-game stretches of .376

This is a good post to come back with though! For those who don't know, The Weakerthans are the product of John K. Samson. Samson got his "start" (quotations since I doubt he was planning to stick around or was musically fulfilled) in the 90's band Propaghandi as their bassist. After leaving that band he started focusing on his own material and formed the Weakerthans. The rest is Can-rock history.

Musically, this is hyper-literate, soft-spoken pop-punk with a lot of mellow songs and all-around fantastic songwriting. If you like Jawbreaker but wish they sounded more like Yo-La Tengo then this is the ticket!

HERE

HUM- YOU'D PREFER AN ASTRONAUT

Just some more Hum. Good-ass spaced-out alt-rock. Pumpkins with more of a shoegaze/pink floyd influence!

HERE

IMMORTAL- AT THE HEART OF WINTER

Black Metal, like pretty much every other sub-genre of extreme music, constantly sparks debates about sincerity within the genre. These kinds of debates almost always touch on some set of arbitrary rules about something as significant as songwriting or something as trivial as how the band members are dressed. One common debate I've seen on message boards and in reviews is how much "rawness" (the extent to which the recordings are made to sound intentionally lo-fi) is important to the music being "true" or sincere.

While a lot of classic black metal is very raw in its production, so what? Keeping both feet constantly in the philosophies and practices of the people who inspired you can lead to not only your own artistic stagnation but also increases the likelihood of your music sounding like a poor imitation of those bands. Which is why I'm glad this album exists.

Immortal were one of the first-wave Norwegian Black Metal bands and their early recordings were very raw but album to album the production, not to mention the musicianship and songwriting, took incredible leaps and bounds. This is my favourite of their albums and while this is undeniably a black metal LP in terms of the music, the production makes it sound as crisp and clear as Ride the Lightning! Sadly, Immortal will always be more remembered by hipsters as the band that made ridiculous music videos and wore a ton of makeup and medieval armour... at least people who actually like music for music's sake can enjoy this!


HERE

GLOOM-Vokusatsu, Seisin, Hatansha

Hey everyone, remember me? I forgot my gmail password for 3 months or more, but I have it again and I've got a lot to share.

Here's the band that burst my crasher crust (blown out Japanese d-beat) cherry and still remain my favorite practitioner of the genre. Listen to Wargasm and Decay and pump your fist.

DOWNLOAD

CRYSTAL SWELLS- HARSH SIDE/SLUDGE FREAKS 7"

This is the perfect acid-fried, garage-pop, speed-trip for your summer! Four jams in seven minutes, oodles of reverb on the vocals, drums that sound like Chuck Biscuits backing Dick Dale and some truly killer guitar playing! This band has been at it for a few years and they always rule! You can download the individual tracks on the bandcamp... ohh, just got to track three and it's a fucking anthem! this band is too good!

HERE

THIN LIZZY- BLACK ROSE

This is a fucking great record. If you like guitars then you'll dig this... if you don't like guitars, go to a different blog.

HERE

MONOMYTH

Monomyth are a new band from Halifax making great shoegaze-surf-jangle-noise-pop... Now, of course that sounds like a million other trendy bullshit bands that currently populate every music scene in the western world BUT these four dudes have the edge. Great musicianship, songwriting and a fuck-ton of charm. I had the honour of meeting and sharing a stage with these guys last night and needless to say, they were the highlight of the night by a Texas mile. They're touring Canada right now and are all the way from Halifax so if you live on Vancouver Island or in Vancouver, go see them this week before they go back to their crab fishing jobs.


HERE

CRIME DESIRE - IN LUCIFER'S GRIP

I think the cover of this album says it all really.

DOWNLOAD

HUM- DOWNWARD IS HEAVENWARD

Well, what to say about HUM? a cult act if there ever was one. Spacey (but not shoegazy) alt-rock with lyrics about girls and astronomy. When I say "alt-rock" I worry it conjures memories of Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots or something else that sucks but I'm thinking more along the lines of Smashing Pumpkins' heavier songs circa 95! This is very blissful music with the occasional crushing guitar part and feedback-laden lead melody. I feel like by describing it, as I'm trying to do right now, I'm over contextualizing it and not getting to the point. This band is really good and sadly forgotten in comparison to other bands from the era. This is their last album but it's a good starting point!


HERE

WRITE OFF- TERROR COMPOUND DEMO

Full disclosure, I'm not very "cool" in the traditional sense of the word. I wear the same thing almost every day, I don't party (unless getting drunk in a park counts), I watch Two and Half Men reruns and I work the counter at a gas station that belongs to a billion-dollar corporation.

Having a job like this means I get (have) to interact with the largest possible cross-section of people in this city. Entitled people who yell at me when their credit card is declined, angry people who threaten me through bullet-proof glass when I'm working the night-shift, smokers with no patience for my attempts at small talk and the worst: people who refuse to follow instructions clearly written on the pumps so they don't have to talk to me. Those are just the assholes though. One bright spot is the location. We're right next door to one of Vancouver's busiest and most-popular rehearsal spaces so I get to talk gear and music nerd stuff with the occasional stranger. One such stranger I've become acquaintances with is a man named Bubba.

Bubba walks with a cane, has a massive mane of greying hair and a beard to match, always buys orange juice and has Sleep and Winter patches on his vest (A+). I assumed he just lived in the area but one day he came in and had a bag from a nearby music store with some swank new mics in it. I asked him about recording and that got the ball rolling. Bubba is the singer for an awesome new hardcore band here in the city and their name is Write Off. This is straight up, in your face 80's styled hardcore with modern vocals that remind me of Look Back and Laugh. The real spike in this punch bowl is that the guitars are tuned to drop-D, something totally foreign to retro-hardcore, and it adds a subtle modern touch to the music that sounds slightly unlike anyone else currently playing this style. Anyway, Bubba gave me the demo the other day and it kills. Ten songs in nine minutes. Enjoy!!!

p.s. the above video is Write Off jamming in their rehearsal space!

HERE

SEAM- THE PROBLEM WITH ME

Seam rule. Classic Touch & Go circa 93. Strains of Slint and Bitch Magnet (obviously since Sooyoung Park fronted that band as well) but with a more melodic approach reminiscent of the indie-tinged emo that would soon become all the rage. Very beautiful guitar playing with a nice amount of crunchy parts and big choruses to break up the beautiful monotony. More bands should waste their time trying to rip off bands like this that people have forgotten about instead of trying to rip off the Black Lips, because hey, THAT BAND IS STILL PUTTING OUT RECORDS!!!


HERE

MY DAD IS DEAD- CHOPPING DOWN THE FAMILY TREE

My Dad Is Dead has quickly risen to the top of my non-existent but very important list of bands-that-should-be-a-big-deal-but-no-one-gives-a-hoot-about. Formed by drummer Mark Edwards after the dissolution of his previous outfit, MDID hit the ground running despite the fact that Edwards recorded his first album after only playing guitar and writing songs for about a year. This is about six years after the debut and believe me, you will be in awe of how masterful and tasteful someone can be at their instrument after such a relatively short period of time.

I'm not sure where MDID lies musically. Elements of goth, post-punk and psych-rock are constantly tugging at one another but it's all focused on so perfectly by Edwards' songwriting which is distinctly late 80's/early 90's indie rock. I don't know what it is but I will call it genius and I will call it catchy as hell!

Also I love this lyric:

"Give me a cross... and I will carry it/ Show me a feeling... and I will bury it"

HERE

SIGHTLINES- SUMMER EP

Sightlines are a local pop-punk band featuring the songs of Eric Axen (also of Hermetic and formerly of Painted Youth, who have both been featured on the blog before!) and this is their first EP! It smokes. Not "smokes" in the "riffage" or metallic sense of the verb but more in the sense that this is 100% efficient and catchy pop-punk that wastes no time fucking around, unless that fucking around constitutes fun. Also this is not the cheesy, leather-jacket-ramones-shirt-pink-converse kind of pop-punk but more like Eric's Trip trying incredibly hard to sound like Jawbreaker. Anyway, the songs rule and will be stuck in your head just like a new crush.

GET IT NOW!!!

AT THE DRIVE-IN - RELATIONSHIP OF COMMAND

I listened to this gem of poppy, spaced-out post-hardcore for the first time in about five years today and it has not aged as poorly as I assumed it would have. The guitar playing still sounds like beacons from distant satellites, the melodies still worm into your brain like robotic-insects intent on harvesting your sanity, and the rhythm section still drives the songs but the heaviness of the drums and bass was lost on my younger self... Oh yeah, the vocals are FUCKING PERFECT! I don't know how to accurately describe them but for this type of music, it's exactly what I want. 'One-Armed Scissor' is still the jam

HERE

SCREECHING WEASEL - ANTHEM FOR A NEW TOMORROW

Oh wow, it's been totally sunny outside and amazing and pop-punk is obviously the best thing to listen to. I'm sure you've all heard this before, but whatevs. Grab a six-pack and sit in a park with IMO their best record blaring thru yr earphones. Pop hooks a-plenty shrouding some well-crafted and often dark lyrics. So I guess you can like it even if shit ain't all hot dogs and slurpees right now.

HERE

HUSKER DU- METAL CIRCUS

Just a classic EP for this fine Monday. As a whole, I like this one way more than Zen Arcade, but that's just my shitty opinion so whatever.


HERE

MAHRIA - S/T

Ffffftttt- and a low whistle... Another flare shot into the gaping webby void...

Well heya folks. Thanks to the invitation (and grooming) of Sensei Cam, I'm here to toss my borrowed cents at the feet of all you bloggist taste-makers / recommendation-takers. Nice to meet you.

Let's kick it off with something current: Edmonton's MAHRIA. I seriously can't get enough of this record. A punishing, tortured, female-fronted work sitting at that perfect intersection of emo and post-hardcore. Soul-crushing primal yelps, wickedly melodic guitar interplay, and some of the hugest production I've heard in a long time. The track "Justification of an Old Man" is particularly devastating. Available for free on Bandcamp.

HERE

Oh yeah, and I just found out that THEY PLAYED IN VANCOUVER YESTERDAY AND I HAD NO IDEA. FML. If you went to that show, post here and tell me how awesome it was so I can feel shittier about myself.

BLACK FLAG- LIVE 84'

If later Flag still makes you scratch your head then look no further. This is what later Flag is all about right here. Just before Kira left and Greg Ginn had his bong fused to his lips. If you don't like this, then you don't like late Flag... Hey! don't worry about it man!


HERE

IRON LUNG- SEXLESS/NO SEX

Disclaimer: If you do not like loud, angry, dissonant, and punishing music then it's very likely you won't like this.

Now, first things first... HOLY SHIT! I slept on this band for so long and I have no idea why. I listened to this album on the way home last night and it is so perfect. Not perfect in a broader sense of music, just perfect for what it is. The music made by this two piece is so perfectly untainted by any aspirations of success, popularity, notoriety, or any other desire that can often compromise the important aspects of good extreme music. I really got a sense that these guys are only doing this for themselves. This is pure modern powerviolence with such a perfect dose of harsh-noise and slower-parts to break up the wall of fury. PERFECT! PERFECT! PERFECT!

The songs totally bleed into each other but it's in such a perfect way that it feels like one continuous piece of music. The riffs are so atonal and percussive that none of the songs have an identifiable key or even a melody and alternately, could all be in some magical, imperceptible key that normal humans can't actually hear. The playing is flawless, the vocals are perfectly angry and they never veer too far into metal territory. This is exactly what modern powerviolence bands need to look to. No more angry frat boys taking off their shirts and playing grindcore with more tempo changes and calling it powerviolence. THIS IS POWERVIOLENCE!!! All hail the Iron Lung!!!

HERE

NO COMMENT- DOWNSIDED

Just some raging powerviolence. fast, slow, heavy, harsh... definitely one of the genre's best records, of which there are many. Sorry for the lack of posts and the lack of depth in the posts. Life still sucks... just now it sucks worse than the last few times I used that as an excuse for a lack of posts.


HERE

BORN AGAINST- NINE PATRIOTIC HYMNS FOR CHILDREN

Last night some of my friends played a joke set as a 'conservative-punk-band' and it reminded me of this album cover... not the album, just the cover. This album is a staple of 90's hardcore. Sludgy bits, distorted bass, almost complete dissonance. Good shit to get mad to. Yeah, it's on other blogs but maybe some people haven't heard it yet!


HERE

TITLE FIGHT- SHED

This is what it is. Emo-ey pop-punk with awesome guitar playing and super hoarse vocals that manage to sound more sincere than your standard 'I'm-trying-to-compensate-for-the-melody-by-singing-like-I'm-in-a-crust-band' performance that is so common with pop-punks who try to hide from the fact that the genre has more in common with "shitty" music than music that is undeniably punk. This band is really popular so I'm sure this'll get taken down but enjoy it while it lasts. The song "27" is especially perfect.

HERE

OLD POSTS

I've been lazy and since I don't upload any of these albums myself, most of them seem to have been taken down from mediafire. I was just going to discreetly re-up all of them... but the number kept getting bigger and I don't want to sit at my computer all day. So I'm just going to leave this here and let people comment if they want something re-upped that has been taken down.

p.s. google it first! someone else probably uploaded it!

BURNING WITCH- CRIPPLED LUCIFER

This is my candidate for the most brutally-heavy album(s) of all time. I say 'albums' because Crippled Lucifer compiles both of Burning Witch's full-lengths but they both operate on the same plane of soul-destroying doom metal. This is seriously the heaviest doom gets. No groove, riffs that exist solely to build tension that gives you chills, guitars tuned down to almost atonal frequencies and then the vocals. The singer for Burning Witch sounds like Bon Scott possessed by the most evil, fucked up, and anguished demon to ever be banished to the ninth circle. This is not for casual metal fans or people who don't like "sad" music... oh and I believe Steve Albini recorded both albums so yeah, they sound awesome!


HERE

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN- LIVE IN PASSAIC, NEW JERSEY 1978

This is the live performance to end all live performances. You can listen to this entire three-hour concert on youtube if you so desire.


HERE

BAD BRAINS- S/T

I know this album doesn't need to be discussed among people who already love hardcore but there are people that aren't crazy about hardcore who probably haven't heard this. Some say this is the best hardcore album ever recorded. Some say this is the best album ever recorded!

If you play guitar, bass or drums and you haven't listened to this album before, then you need to right now. These guys were one of the few hardcore bands that actually PLAYED. They didn't just show up, plug in, count to four and hope for the best. The consensus among hardcore fans from the early 80's seems to be that The Bad Brains were right up there with Black Flag as the best live band on the planet in their heyday and the few early live videos don't indicate otherwise. You seriously need to listen to this if you never have because it may change the way you think about punk, your instrument or technical-proficiency in music. Also, it just fucking slays. Even the reggae tracks are A+


HERE

THE MUSIC OF KATIE CRUTCHFIELD

About two years ago I discovered a band called PS Eliot. It was lo-fi pop-punk with some great melodies but it had that indescribable WOW! factor that you're always secretly hoping for when first hearing a band's music. Over the next few months I found out that the source of these songs was a one-woman pop-genius named Katie Crutchfield. In addition to the demo, EP and two LP's by PS Eliot, who recently disbanded, were an album by The Ackleys, a demo LP by Bad Banana, And a split cassette/LP by her current solo project Waxahatchee. It's all great. Her sense of melody for vocals and guitar, and how those two can feed off of each other is astounding. Not to mention the number of songs!!!

If you like anything from Guided by Voices to The Promise Ring to Jawbreaker then this is probably something you'll dig!

BAD BANANA

PS ELIOT 


WAXAHATCHEE

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN SLEEP- ROCK N' ROLL NIGHTMARE... OF CAPITALISM!

So You Think You Can Sleep are a fantastic band from here in Vancouver that I have absolutely loved ever since I first saw them a few years ago. Very catchy math-rock-emo styled guitar playing, some trumpet, dual male-female vocals and Aaron from Bad Fate (Vancouver's secretly-best drummer!) laying it down masterfully on the kit. Musically, this is the intersection between Cap'n Jazz and American Football... just with really political lyrics. You can listen and then download...


HERE

GRAM PARSONS- GP

When you're sad you often want to listen to sad music, and traditionally country music is seen as a genre whose sole-focus is encapsulating the sounds and feelings of heartbreak, regret, loneliness, and whatever shitty emotion happens to be afflicting the writer at that point. Gram Parsons' music perfectly fits this stereotype and not just because his is one of the saddest stories in all of country music. A member of The International Submarine Band, The Byrds, and The Flying Burrito Brothers, Parsons had his eggs in many influential baskets. After ditching all of these bands, he went solo in 1972 but would die a year later at age 27 after overdosing on liquor and morphine. His manager, likely a cool dude, honoured Gram's dying wish and kidnapped Gram's body and coffin from the funeral, drove them out to the Joshua Tree desert and burned them down to ashes. This legendary story, combined with Gram's reputation for being a bit weird, tormented, and under-appreciated in his lifetime, makes him my second favourite member of the twenty-seven-club.

This is his first solo LP and it's just a great, sad, and beautiful country album. If you dig this, the second LP Grievous Angel, is just as good.

HERE

BRAID- FRAME AND CANVAS

This is a really good, poppy emo record. Short songs, no weirdness, good guitar playing. I've loved this record for many years and I just realized that it doesn't get talked about among my circle of 90's-indie-loving-friends so I thought I'd share it.

P.S. sorry for the lack of posts. Live has been one big septic tank of especially smelly and time-eating shit lately...


HERE

MY DAD IS DEAD- THE TALLER YOU ARE, THE SHORTER YOU GET

This is good. 80's home-recording project with a drum machine. Layers of awesome guitar playing, super depressing lyrics, vocals that kind of sound like early REM and really good songwriting. If you like anything lo-fi, indie-rock, kind of weird or depressing then this is a little gem of a record for you. Oh yeah, this was on Homestead, so you know it's some 80's indie goodness.

HERE

CAP'N JAZZ- SCHMAP'N SCHMAZZ (the actual title is 27 words long)

A beautiful Saturday. Coffee in my cup, played an awesome basement show last night, had good talks with old friends and slept in until the early afternoon. The sun is shining through my window, NCAA basketball is on in the background... And I feel optimistic about the future for this brief moment. What this has to do with Cap'n Jazz? Your guess is as good as mine. I sat down at my computer just now and felt like posting something...

This seemed to be the only album that satisfied the feelings running through me at the moment. What is it? Poppy, sloppy, innocent Midwestern emo from 1994. Based on that description you either can't wait to hear this or you've already left... If the weather is nice wherever you may be, put this on your portable-listening device and go for a long walk. It'll make you think about romance, growing up, nostalgia and all those other wonderful, post-adolescent experiences that only seem to have meaning for that brief, amazing period of our lives.

HERE

NEW ORDER- BROTHERHOOD

Yes, everyone likes Joy Division and most music-obsessed people will tell you that New Order is nowhere near as good as Joy Division... those people also voted for Bush in his second term. Seriously.

This album is where New Order finally gelled as a BAND while simultaneously discovering that they had GUITARS! Obviously synths still colour every song on this album but for the first time there is a discernible guitar or bass-hook on every track. Not to mention that it has several gems that seem to fall out of "classic" status come compilation time. If you've never dug the band or synth-pop but want to give it a serious shot, this is as good a starting place as any.

Unfortunately, this seems to have been taken down from any reputable file-sharer so all I can give you is this track:

Noose - the War of All Against All

The worst part of getting hit by a car (Aside from the swelling) is not being able to bedroom mosh. Imagine the immense bitter sweetness of Noose posting their new 7" The War of All Against All the day after I stopped an SUV with my butt.
I remember the sheer excitement I felt before I listened to their demo: a philosophy professor fronting an east coast-style hardcore band. UGH! I was not let down. It's so refreshing to see and hear some challenging lyrics and PC baiting imagery from people who understand what their talking about and are willing to discuss any issues raised by detractors. Soundwise this recording is raw as fuck. So raw it's dripping (Sweat, that is. From moshing). Think Antidote's "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Mining the creme de la creme of the North East hardcore sounds. From Negative Approach to Siege, and the aforementioned Antidote. All the crucial aspects of scary, righteous hardcore are thrown into the mix. From the philosophical references being used to serve hardcore to the bulldozing riffs, this EP has something for everyone. One day I'll see Noose again, and I'll watch in amazement as a bunch of hardcore kids pile up to yell "Conceptual gerrymandering"



VEGANISM... OR TOTAL ANNIHILATION.

before you download this, please consider grabbing the real deal from their big cartel or react!'s webstore. support the moral law.
DOWNLOAD

13th FLOOR ELEVATORS- THE PSYCHEDELIC SOUND OF

This album is a perfect example of why garage-rock has already been done to death and why you and your skinny-jeans-wearing, trust-fund-living bros really shouldn't start a garage-rock band. This came out in 1966 and was already turning conventional garage-rock on its head by adding all the acid-fried weirdness of Roky Erickson and his band to the mix. That's right, 1966. It was that long ago that people saw garage-rock as something stale enough that a new direction was warranted entirely. In case you haven't read other posts on the blog, I hate garage-rock and especially the thousands of shit eaters who have decided in the last ten years that they should start a garage-rock band. It's FUCKING OLD. Seriously. Even if you just want to pay tribute to the genre, a real rarity these days since most schmucks' idea of classic garage is the Black Lips, the Gories did it better than anyone else ever could have so maybe it's time everyone stopped trying???

Anyway, I don't want to take away from the greatness and innovation that is this LP. This is one of the first psychedelic albums and it's awesome! The songwriting is incredible, the guitar playing is the catchy little bit of sugar that keeps it from descending into absolute weirdness and Roky Erickson's voice is perfect for these songs. If you don't like music from the 60's as a rule or if you like garage-rock and haven't heard this then you must click the link!

HERE

Hermetic-Civilized City / Painted Youth discography

Eric Axen is a good dude, and all the bands I'm aware of him playing with are great. From Hermetic, who just released their debut LP (peep their bandcamp) to Sightlines, Paper Lanterns (he only played guitar for them on their last show. Whatever...) and finally: Painted Youth, who easily land in my top 3 BC bands ever. Loud interesting punk with great lyrics. I wish I got to see them when I was younger, I wish I got to see them at all. (Keep your ear to the ground about the possible Alf House anniversary reunion...)

Photo by Erin Green

Because I don't want to throw Hermetic's brand new album online for free, here is the Painted Youth discography as complete as I have it. Apparently there are a few splits floating around. A 5 song demo and their full album, which never got released, unfortunately.

check out Hermetic's "Civilized City" HERE

DOWNLOAD the Painted Youth stuff

DEATH- LEPROSY

Death. Not the Detroit proto-punk band that recently had all their material from the mid-70's reissued but the Florida band from the late 80's that really, if they didn't invent it, gave the genre of death-metal it's name. The argument over who was the first real death-metal band rages on and always will: Possessed, Death Strike, Sadus, Morbid Saint... but with all of those bands there was still a clear allegiance to the tendencies of thrash. Obviously Death couldn't have made the music they did without those bands or all of thrash metal's innovations but there was something mysterious on those first two Death LP's that just sounded so much heavier than everyone else making metal in the late 80's.

This, their second LP, is my favourite metal album of all time. It's not hailed as a masterpiece in most circles and it's usually near the bottom on most people's Death depth-chart but it's their last LP before the more progressive tendencies (which I also love) started to show up. This is raw, heavy, evil and masterfully composed death-metal. The riffs are crushing, the drum sound is amazingly heavy while still sounding raw in the way early death-metal should and this is the only Death album with second guitarist Rick Rozz. For those who know, Rozz was a notoriously lazy guitarist who was sacked from the band for his refusal to help write more progressive material but his playing style works in perfect harmony with main man Chuck Schuldiner on these songs. Chuck is an amazing soloist who has a flair for finding the melody within the dissonance of his compositions, turning his solos into their own internal compositions. Rozz is a thug with a floyd-rose who's solos consist of an endless barrage of dive-bombs, ascending legato-runs with no real purpose and they all end with a big dive or a big pull. Having these two styles on the record is what makes it for me. It really is the perfect mix of first-wave death-metal and what would become progressive death-metal.

If you play guitar, like, or are even curious about death metal then you owe it to yourself to check out this band.


HERE

The Chain - Demo 2012

Jock this band before the real hype starts. 80's NY revival hardcore for fans of Warzone and Youth of Today. I love that this demo has all the modern mosh parts and breakdown bases covered while the recording is still nice and raw. Bands like Backtrack and Minority Unit are tight and all but hardcore is still hardcore, and that super produced sheen just feels weird. Their singer Dereck played/plays guitar in alot of bands in Calgary and so does their drummer Stu, notably (for me anyway) were Runaways, who played their last show a few months back. Not before they were able to make a trek out west and play the Vancouver Island Hardcore Fest. we crashed at the same house and watched Death Race way too late into the night. Tight dudes, tight jams.
Catch them at Van Isle Fest this year!

DOWNLOAD

Wrought: Ironsmile discography

A long search is finally completed because a Russian filesharing website finally translated the "download" button.

 All three 7"s are here PLUS a fantastic split with a country-emo band called the Warsaw Union, who were from Duncan, Vancouver Island. It just might be the only listenable folk-punk recording ever.

A hugely underrated Victoria emo band, one of the last in the first wave that spanned the mid-90's.

DOWNLOAD

SEBADOH- HARMACY

This is a great album if given the appropriate amount of time. Sebadoh are not well-liked by my friends and they are of the opinion that Lou was better off in Dinosaur Jr. than fronting his own band. Pure nonsense if you ask me. I love Dinosaur Jr. for Mascis' awesome playing and You're Living All Over Me is one of the most perfect albums ever written but everything else is very hit-or-miss and later on Mascis began to write songs that sounded like hazy afterthoughts meant to pay his bills. Sebadoh, in my opinion, is all fire and expression. Unlike Jay, I don't feel like Lou ever stopped trying to be a better writer or rested on his laurels... at least in terms of Sebadoh. Lou never made an album as good as You're Living All Over Me but he did make three albums that are better than any other Dino album.

Out of those three, Harmacy gets the least attention. III is all lo-fi mysticism, hopeless ballads and scrappy-charm. Bakesale is the well-produced, amps-on-11 surprise party. So what is Harmacy? Something in between Bakesale and III. More angst and balladry than Bakesale but far too much rock to sound anything like III. The thing that shines here is Lou's voice, songs and melodies. It's really just a messy pop album hidden under some slacker-tendencies that, much like Sebadoh as a whole, loses out on the acclaim it deserves due to Lou's unfortunate reputation as permanent second-fiddle. If you like rooting for the underdog then maybe give Sebadoh a try!

HERE

NUCLEAR FAMILY- S/T

This is some great punk right here. Nuclear Family broke up and finding info on them is tough because, at least according to Discogs, there are seven other bands by the same name and I'll bet at least one of them plays punk. To help distinguish this I will say that it has super melodic female vocals that remind me of Kathleen Hanna's singing (not screaming) and that really nice not-quite-distorted-but-still-dirty-sounding guitar sound that colors every good punk record released between 77-79. LOTS of minor chords! It's only eight tracks and they all rule. This might be hard to find on file sites but it's available for cheap from the label's Discogs page!!!

BUY


STEAL

Ampere / Funeral Diner Split

High res album art of this is elusive, so here's a photo of the record because it's badass.

Two crushing songs from Ampere on the A side, total 90 seconds. Ampere is a really fast and violent band that has Will Killingsworth from Orchid in it, these songs are two of their best. I've always found it odd that I prefer only hearing about a minute of music from a band that fast, you'd think you'd be hungry for more but no.

The other side of this is one of my favourite songs, though it's pretty teenage in hindsight. It's called I Was The Sword by Funeral Diner, a band that broke up in summer 08 as I recall. Sounds like it's a song about Seth Babb's ex girlfriend, but it's spiced up with that tragic hero mythological bullshit that you find in emo music. I mean I like it, but maybe you know what I'm talking about. Seth Babb is the singer of Funeral Diner.

Download HERE

Ghostlimb / Fischer Split

Ghostlimb is a pretty popular (I think) band from LA. They're made of the living singer of Graf Orlock and 2 other guys. Super good emo/hardcore type stuff, their half of this split is good. The reason I'm posting this, however, is Fischer. They don't seem to have much material, in fact the dark side of this record is the most they have in one place.

Basically Fischer is a 2 piece emo band. They have really good guitar playing with some melodies, but the singing is the angsty shouting I like. Think Tiny Hawks but less noodly guitars and less screaming, or 1994! kinda. One of those two piece bands that you don't realize is only two guys and then when you do you go WHOAAAA.

Download HERE

Tempest - Passages

Cruuuuushing local (Vancouver) blackened crusty doomy sludgey metal... I'm not well versed in metal sub-genres or culture or whatever but I'm sure Cam or probably anyone else on the blog would be able to give you a better (or more concise) classification of their sound. I've posted this with permission from their singer Roger, a great dude. There are only 13 more copies of their LP left (according to their bandcamp) which you can order through that site. I think. Snatch them up before they tour Europe (!!!)

My favorite jam is Hierarchy of Greed.

Download!

BIG BLACK- RICH MAN'S EIGHT TRACK TAPE

If you are like me and came of age in the late 90's or early 2000's then you no doubt bought CD's when shopping for music. Why wouldn't you? They were fairly cheap (depending on how dedicated you were to buying music and looking for good deals) and basically the only way to obtain the majority of releases. I never gave much thought about why CD's had replaced vinyl or cassettes and my naive little brain was quick to assume that it must be because CD's sounded better than vinyl!

So fast forward to about 2005: I was finding that a lot of music I wanted to buy was either not available unless I got it specially ordered and if it was available, it was really expensive. Black Sabbath CD's were only $7.99 but other bands' albums (like Big Black's) were as much as $20... I bought the Rich Man's Eight Track Tape on CD for $22.99 because I had only heard Jordan Minnesota and knew this was a band I needed to know inside-out. Keep in mind, this was before I could just go online and find a download of any album in about two minutes. When I got home and removed the shrink wrap and the annoying-as-fuck security stickers Touch-and-Go loved to put on their jewel cases I popped it into my stereo and was instantly pleased. I began reading the love-letter to CD's Steve Albini had penned inside the insert:

"THIS COMPACT DISC, COMPILED TO EXPLOIT THOSE OF YOU GULLIBLE ENOUGH TO OWN THE BASTARDLY FIRST-GENERATION DIGITAL HOME MUSIC SYSTEM, CONTAINS ALL-ANALOG MASTERS. COMPACT DISCS ARE QUITE DURABLE, THIS BEING THEIR ONLY ADVANTAGE OVER REAL MUSIC MEDIA, YOU SHOULD TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO SCRATCH THEM, FINGERPRINT THEM AND EAT EGG AND BACON SANDWICHES OFF THEM. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THEIR LONGEVITY AS PHILLIPS WILL PRONOUNCE THEM OBSOLETE WHEN THE NEXT PHASE OF THE MARKET-SQUEEZING TECHNOLOGY BONANZA BEGINS."

All analog? Real music media? By now I was not only interested in the mind behind this writing but what he was getting at. I was introduced to the mind and music of Steve Albini from there on. Needless to say, it changed the way I viewed the music industry, music production and obviously, music media. And oh yeah, the music was punishing, fucked up and really catchy.

HERE

OUTBREAK- YOU MAKE US SICK

Sometimes you just wanna listen to some pissed-off, breakdown-obsessed hardcore that doesn't do anything fancy, doesn't change anything you already love about hardcore and is just catchy as shit. This is perfect for that!


HERE

GROUNDHOGS- THANK CHRIST FOR THE BOMB

Groundhogs are one of the few lost classic rock bands that actually deserved to be remembered and aren't just some hyped up record-nerd bullshit. A power-trio in the very traditional sense, the songs are composed of fast, bluesy rhythms with tons of jamming, the occasional sabbathy heavy section and oh yeah, killer solos! I'm a douche so I can tell he's using single-coils and sometimes the guitar sounds a lot thinner than is appropriate for the songs, but when it clicks, it does so in the perfect way. The third track is as good as anything Cream ever did.

HERE

SATANIC THREAT- IN TO HELL

This is one of those rare examples of a joke record that ended up being completely awesome in its own right!
Members of Nunslaughter and Midnight come together to record songs based around Minor Threat riffs but change all the lyrics to be about hating christianity! The thing is, these guys prove to be infinitely better at 80's HC worship than a good 75% of the bands out there that are actually trying to do this. Every song is a killer and it's all catchy as hell. Enjoy!


HERE

MODEST MOUSE DOCUMENTARY '97

If you remember Modest Mouse as an amazingly-promising indie-ROCK band and not the major-label snooze-fest they became, then this is the documentary for you! We can talk all day about this band being a prime example of selling out (because yes, they are!) OR we can remember them for what they were, one of the best bands making music from 94-99.

This documentary follows Isaac around during the recording of The Lonesome Crowded West LP and it's about as candid as you can get. Eating subway in the studio, walking around Olympia, going to a corner store to carefully select a good forty and driving around in the band's van just shooting the breeze. Aside from that you get interviews with Elliott Smith, Doug Martsch and Calvin Johnson (who was producing the aforementioned  LP at Dub Narcotic!) A great snapshot of a band and songwriter at the peak of their creative powers.

HERE

ERIC'S TRIP CBC DOCUMENTARY

This is a wonderful little documentary the CBC did on Eric's Trip in 1993. The bulk of the film is just Rick White and Julie Doiron sitting and talking about the band in a very cute and rambling way (which I eventually found pointless and frustrating)... anyways, lots of amazing footage, good songs, cool interviews, some original versions of well-known songs PLUS a very funny commercial that was left on the tape! Enjoy some great 90's Canadiana. It's only about twenty minutes long


HERE
and...
HERE