My Two Cents: Box of Skinnies, Pt. 4

 

















Continuing adventures through the box of CDs I rarely listen to because of their odd packaging. I typed these up months ago, but was too lazy to post them until now. I don't consider myself to be a writer or an expert on anything. These synopsizes are a product of too much time on my hands at work and nothing else to do. I contradict myself often and find myself typing the same things over and over again. 


ANAL CUNT - "Morbid Florist" CD (My first exposure to Anal Cunt and still my favorite A.C. release ever. This would have been my first exposure to noisecore, but I had already been listening to Sore Throat for years without knowing what the hell genre they were playing. My little brother made a video diary of my old band Gristle while we were recording our first demo in my basement and during one of the breaks. I had this cranked on the stereo, talking excitedly about how great it was. This was 1994, I guess. "Morbid Florist" was life-changing for me, and it's the whole reason Captain Three Leg formed. Thanks to Sore Throat I had already been recording 2-3 second long noise songs with my own bands, but Anal Cunt was the primary inspiration for C3L in the beginning. Our ratio of noise to structure on our earliest recordings matched this CD pretty closely. "Morbid Florist" is the perfect marriage of savage noisecore and structure and the recording is clean without being too produced. Seth's vocals were at his peak on this CD, both with his lows and his ear-piercing highs. It was all downhill from here, in my opinion. I love all of the releases from here on out, but none of them touch this. Not even close.)

ANTI-CIMEX - "Anarkist Attak" 7"
SHITLICKERS - "1982" PD12"
HEIST - s/t 7"
HEIST - "Pain is Causing Life" 7"
ARSEDESTROYER - "Teen Ass Revolt" LP
(Another CDR of stuff I transferred from vinyl. The Anti-Cimex record is a bootleg of their demo. Good stuff, but they got way better on their next two releases. Shitlickers are one of my favorite D-beat bands. I was pretty excited to hear the recordings in the B-side, but they ended up being a bit disappointing. Still really noisy, though. Heist were amazing. Everything they recorded was great, even their goofy CD they released at the end of their existence. As a young-un' I favored their first 7" over the second, but I've flipped since. This Arsedestroyer LP is one of the greatest albums ever. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to that thing.)

ASS - "Bye Cactus and Heads" CDR (I just did a big trade with 100% Zero and took the opportunity to snag a bunch of single copy things for my own collection being that I'm not looking for distro stock anymore. Ass is Poopy Necroponde and Matt from 100% Zero doing some nice bass and drums noisecore. It's not particularly "brutal" sounding or fast, but it's entertaining. They both share vocals, often sounding like Minch. It's funny to hear such a clean, great recording for music this stupid, but it really does sound fantastic. The second half was recorded live and suits this style of noise better, in my opinion. The bass has been switched out for a guitar tuned so low it enters Anal Massaker territory. Come to think of it, if this had different vocals on it, you could easily fool someone into thinking it wan an Anal Massaker release. This live stuff rules.)

ASS - "Hello Grecian Postherd" CDR (Sounds like a 4 track recording this time around. That wonderful de-tuned guitar is here again and the vocals are more frequent than on the above disc. With a little more structure these guys could be one of my favorite bands. Some of the slower, longer songs drag on longer than I would prefer, but this is mostly really good.)

AWESOME COLOR - s/t CD* (I got this from my friend Travis. If I remember correctly, he saw them open for Dinosaur Jr. and liked them enough to buy a disc. I don't think I've listened to this before today and I was fully expecting to hate this because Travis' musical tastes rarely overlap mine, but this is pretty good. They have a nice, minimal rock thing going on not unlike those old Stooges albums. The guitars have a nice fuzz to them and the riffs are simple and clean. The vocalist was kind of irritating at first, but he quickly grew on me. It's too bad there isn't saxophone on the whole album like there is on "Hat Energy". That was the highlight of this disc for me, though the last song and it's 8 minutes of minimal retardation was nice, too. I could see myself listening to this more than once.)

BUCKSHOT FACELIFT - "Demo" CDR (I have a copy of this in a jewel case, too, and recently I obtained a copy of this demo on 7" that was released by a label in Florida. I didn't pay for any of them, it's weird that I would have it three times. This is pretty good. It's almost HC or powerviolence, but it's way heavier than that. It's not quite metallic enough to be considered grindcore, but the vocals are fucking vicious and extreme. There's some discordant stuff going on in a few of the songs, too. The recording is appropriate for this kind of stuff and noisy enough to accent everything in the right ways. A solid demo, yes, but I don't think they recorded anything after this. Too bad.)

CACASONICA / KRIMINALISTIKA - split CDR (This sounds like a rehearsal recording, but it's fairly good sounding. It just lacks the punch of their other recordings. A couple of the guys in Cacasonica are also in Colico and this recording sounds like most of Colico's do. Cacasonica are great, the perfect mix of hardcore and noisecore. They're probably my favorite band from that Ecuador scene. The guitarist of Cacasonica is also in Kriminalistika, who aren't so great on this release. Drum machine grindcore with direct-sounding guitars and gore vocals. I don't remember them sounding like this on the other releases I have.)

CAPTAIN THREE LEG / DISTANT TRAINS - split 3" CDR (While sifting through C3L master tapes, I found a bunch of songs we recorded for our split tape with Homogenized Terrestrials that were never released. We recorded a bunch of harsh noise stuff and only ended up using about half of it, so I asked my friend Charles if he wanted to do a split with them since they wouldn't fit in with any of our other leftover songs. Some of these leftover songs aren't terrible, but a couple of them are one-dimensional and boring. Distant Trains give us two tracks. The first is sort of a digital HC song with a nice trumpet break and a droney part towards the end. The second is a longer sound collage with a repeating sample from Emil of Cock ESP. It's a forced pairing for a split, but it works okay. We made 50 copies of this thing, still a bunch left. You should buy one so Charles doesn't regret releasing it through his label.)

CAULIFLOWER ASS & BOB - "Ruinin' Yore Songs" CDR (Usually one of my favorite WCFOM projects, but this CD of cover songs doesn't come close to touching the greatness of their original songs. That miserable, sloppy, sad-stack style only works when it's applied to songs about desperation and drunkenness, not cover versions of punk rock songs. I don't listen to this one very often.)

CAULIFLOWER ASS & BOB - "Songs in the Key of Drunk" CD (How fitting is it that Menace to Sobriety released this collection of the most drunk and miserable folk music ever? The best bits of CA&B's expansive catalog were chosen for this gem of a release. Normally 78 minutes would be way too long for just about anything, but this is quality entertainment from start to finish. This probably fell on deaf ears when it was released, unappreciated by most everyone, but it's the easiest to digest of the CA&B releases. Lovely hand stamped brown paper bag packaging adorns this thing, as minimal as the music is.)

CEDRIC'S LETTUCE - "Motel Broslin" CDR (I dreaded listening to this thing once I saw how long it was, so I've put it off for a few weeks now. I've run out of things to listen to on my iPod, so I finally listened to it today. It's as painful as I thought it would be. Not bad, just really fucking harsh and super long. I can do about 20 minutes of harsh noise before I've had my fill, so 77 minutes was a real endurance test. There was plenty of variety throughout, but all of it was unrelenting.)

CEDRIC'S LETTUCE / EAT YOUR PETS - split CDR (Drum machine blasts, harsh noise, guitar, stupid keyboard breaks and pissed, screaming vocals. This Cedric's Lettuce stuff would have fit in perfectly on the Stupidity Records catalog back in the 90s. Maybe it's because I've been talking about Billy a lot recently, but this sounds like some of the T.L.L.N. stuff. Not the great shit-talking stuff, but his other noisy efforts. 20 minutes or so in length, much easier to digest than the above CDR. Eat Your Pets is a solo project of Jason from Deep Fried Embryo. They're not too different, actually, just with a drum machine instead of a live drummer. It's total chaos the whole time, 20-30 second chunks of noisecore.)

COLICO / AUDICION IRRITABLE - split CDR (I love Colico, but all of their recordings literally sound the same, like they all could have been done at the same session. Their tracks, or course, are all super short and really stupid with crazy vocals, all around 5 seconds long. I'm really digging this because I haven't listened to them in a while. Audicion Irritable were one of the first noisecore bands I ever heard and they're legends in the South American noise scene. Their tracks on here are great. The vocals are inhuman sounding, guitar barely audible and the drums are doing snare-only blasting most of the time. I'm not familiar enough with them to know if this is exclusive material or not, but most of their stuff would be impossible to find today anyway, so fuck it. Great split!)

COLICO / CACASONICA - "Clitorisario" CDR (This split was inevitable seeing as they share members. Colico tracks are great, like always, but the above description could be dropped in here and it would be fitting. I've said it before, but Cacasonica were one of the best bands in recent years. This stuff is great, really noisy, but with lots of great HC parts that hold everything together. I had a bunch of these for sale at one point and got a lot of feedback from people who loved it.)

COLICO / KUSARI GAMA KILL - split CDR (Fuck it, I'm not writing about Colico again. See above... KGK, from Denmark, are great. It's nice hearing a new approach to noisecore. I assume all of this stuff is constructed on a computer and vocals are added later. There are "riffs", but no guitars. Lots of wacky shit going on at all times and heaping amounts of noise dumped over everything. I don't own a lot of their releases, but I love everything I have. I hope to do something with them soon on Mortville.)

COLICO / MENSO NOISE - split CDR (See above re: Colico. Menso Noise are also from Ecuador. I have a couple of their releases, but couldn't get into any of them. This stuff is really, really sloppy and jokey - cut up with Metallica covers (?). Sounds like it might be a solo project. It's not terrible, but it's also not something I'd chose to listen to willingly.)

CRIMPSHRINE - "The Sound of a New World Being Born" CD* (I have most of this stuff on vinyl, but downloaded this to listen to in my car. As a teenager I loved these guys. I don't like it as much now, but I still enjoy a good chunk of their music. That late 80s Berkley scene was the first real underground music I got into after thrash metal and Crimpshrine were one of the better bands in that scene. I still have all of my old Lookout 7"s I bought as a teenager. As I got older I came to realize their lyrics were pretty stupid, but the drumming and bass playing was always really good. Jeff's vocals are raspy and a strange pairing with this music, but it works somehow. My attention started to drift half way though this, though. 10 minutes at a time? Sure, but 72 minutes is way too long. I may have listened to this 3 or 4 times after burning this CD. I doubt I'll listen to it again anytime soon.)

CROSS, DAVID - "Shut Up You Fucking Baby" CD (My friend Mike sent me a promo copy of this years ago, but I don't think I've listened to it before today. I've never watched Mr. Show because I don't pay for premium channels, I was sick of people telling me how awesome it was all the time and, frankly, I could never get past David Cross' stupid fucking face to give it a chance. So I listened to this today with a closed mind and didn't enjoy it at all. I think I cracked a smile once or twice, but there were no laughs to be had.)

DEEDS OF FLESH - "3 Song Promo 1999" CD (How in the fuck did I acquire this one? Accepting demos and promos is all part of running a label. Most of the time they're terrible, but I try to listen to all of them all the way through. I can't imagine anyone from the band sent me this, and I was never in contact with Unique Leader Records, so my possession of this is a mystery to me. Well, the drumming is really solid on here. It's a bit boring, but precise. The guitars aren't really doing anything interesting and I can't hear the bass guitar at all. The vocals are okay, I guess, most of the time, but the pitch-shifted vocals on the third song are really stupid.)

EAT YOUR PETS / ANAL CAKE - split CDR (E.Y.P. is a solo noisecore project from Jason of Deep Fried Embyro. I think I prefer E.Y.P. over his other band, to be honest. It's the same sort of thing, but shorter and noisier. It does sort of suffer from every track sounding the same, but it's noisecore and 4 minutes long, so who gives a shit. Anal Cake (fuck, what a dumb name) don't sound all that different. The drum machine is more prominent in the mix and the vocals are pitch-shifted, but it's a complete mess just like E.Y.P. is.)

ELECTRO-MUD - "The Lounger" 3" CDR ("The Lounger" is one sprawling, 20 minute piece of Sonic Youth meets Flipper. The first 10 minutes is a tense build-up with noisy guitar solos and a barely audible distorted voice that took me a while to figure out what it was, exactly. It gives way to some noise and heavily treated vocals at the halfway mark that take us to the end. Essentially, Electro-Mud and Ass are the same band as they consist of the same two people. I've never understood why people need to start a different project for a genre change, but Electro-Mud are great. Their CD, split LP and this 3" have all been great. I hope Matt and Poopy record more stuff like this.)

EQUILIBRIUM / MALEVOLENT SNEAKER TOOTH - "Remittance of Pain" CDR (Equilibrium does sort of an instrumental Godflesh type thing, but without the ambient guitar overdubs. It's really minimal, guitar heavy and with lots of emphasis on repetitive, pounding drums. I've written about M.S.T. before and I had a difficult time describing them then. Same here. It's very 90s sounding, sometimes sort of power metal-ish, occasionally doomy. These three songs were really good, though.)

F2RC - "Rapture of the Deep" CDR (I didn't notice the "Fresh Farm Raised Catfish" stamp on the label until this morning when I loaded this on my iPod. No clue if that's what F2RC stands for or not, but it blew my mind seeing it today. This is a short CD with no cover art, just a postage stamp-sized insert with a track listing and contact info inside of a sandwich bag. Not quite noise, but definitely experimental music that sounds like it was all recorded with a drum machine, bass and a guitar with a lot of effects. This is loose and jammy with no real structure, but it doesn't feel directionless. It's all fairly mellow, so I enjoyed listening to it. It's hard to judge this on it's musicianship or skill because neither are showcased here. Just noodling and tinkering around with sounds.)

FUNERARY BOX - "2012 Promo" CDR (Doug and Poopy are back with more primitive, blackened death metal. I've listened to this 4 or 5 times since getting it and it's solid. I played it for my friend Brian on the drive back from seeing Deicide, told him who was involved with the project, and he was taken aback by how "straight" it sounded. The guitars have a nice Swedish death metal tone on these recordings.Occasionally the riffing is a little too black metal sounding for me, but it slips right back into sludgy, chunky Autopsy-like death metal effortlessly. The drumming is tighter than on the other promo I have, too. My only real complaint is that the vocals are a little overbearing, but I suppose that was intentional. There's almost always two vocals tracks at any given moment, sometimes three or more. This is really good other than that.)

KNIGHT, DAN & THE DON BLEW TRIO - "Together Again... Again!" CD (Take whatever I wrote about this group in the last update and apply it here. This one was recorded live, too, but sounds a little hollow compared to the Christmas album they did. The playing is all rock-solid on this. I'd prefer that this was all instrumental, but Dan sings on a couple of songs. His voice is a full baritone and he sings well, but I'm not crazy about vocals over jazz music.)

KNURL / KORYPHAIA - "Triflura / Longomontamus" CD (If I remember correctly, Knurl was a project of the guy behind Weird Vision, Krush and Spasmoparapsychotic Records. I can't remember his name now, but we used to trade in the 90s and chatted a bunch on Yahoo. This is great harsh noise stuff before the "wall" was added to the genre rag and everything became boring. Noisers used to harsh out and still add some variety to their sounds once upon a time. His tracks went by quickly and held my interest throughout. Koryphaia are more ambient sounding with lots of slow, scraping metal sounds. The second track is a long, sizzling piece of electronics. This whole this was great.)

KOLOB TRUST FUND - "Gummo" CDR (Kolob Trust Fund is Matt from Electro-Mud, Ass, 100% Zero Records, etc and Erik Disorder. I think either Food or Poopy might be involved with this, too, but I'm not sure. Matt threw this in with the trade as it was just released. Erik's voice sounds a lot like Food's. I never noticed how close they sounded until today. This was only 30 minutes long, but it was difficult to listen to. I lost interest in it after a couple of songs. The Pink Floyd cover was a lot of fun, though. Sorry guys...)

LETTUCE VULTURES - "There's Nothing Weirder Than Real Life" CDR (Fuck, I have a lot of Lettuce Vultures releases. Luckily, they're all entertaining. The more I hear, the more I appreciate it. These songs are well written and catchy, even if the the playing is sloppy most of the time. Food's lyrics are clever and funny and his lazy vocal delivery fits this sloppy punk perfectly.)

LETTUCE VULTURES - "You Can't Make a Living Off of Punk Rock" CDR (The recording is a lot better on this one and the vocals have that same distorted, distant sound that the Brainbombs have on their recordings. Other than that, it's consistent with the above release. My copy says this is limited to 10 copies with a color cover.)

MAHLER HAZE - "Coming Events Cast Their Shadow Before" CDR (If I remember correctly, these recordings are older than on the disc below. They're just as good, in my opinion. This is mostly droney, but there's lots of texture within. A couple of the tracks have sort of a mid eastern feel, though not sure if that was intentional or not. I'm guessing these things just sort of develop as they may depending on the day. Klaus Schulze + Cosmic Jokers comes to mind while listening to this stuff, and that's a good thing.)

MAHLER HAZE - "Final Vapour" CDR (Man, this CD is fantastic! I've been in it's grip since I started playing it. Nice, lush ambient drone drenched in 1970s kraut influence. The sounds are so fucking clean on here and everything sounds perfect. Lots of buzzing, disturbing bits throughout and passages that remind me of the summer segment from Wendy Carlos' great "Sonic Seasonings" 2LP. The Cluster influence is undeniable, but this isn't a straight-up copy. It's a lot darker, more moody than anything I've heard Cluster do. No clue what he used to create these sounds, but there's some sparse guitar here and there that brings this back down to Earth reminding us that a human is responsible for these extraterrestrial sounds. Totally captivating stuff here, no kidding.)

NIHILIST COMMANDO - "Noisecore Genocide Demo 2006" CDR (Even faster and angrier than the previous demo. The gaps between songs are tightened-up and the recording is more powerful sounding, too. One of the best noisecore bands going, if he's still going, that is. Incredible..)

OFFAL / BOWEL FETUS - split CD (I think Offal are from Brazil, but I can't remember for sure. It's too metal for me, just not my thing at all. Sitting through their songs was worth it to get to the great Bowel Fetus. These songs are a little less "pro" sounding than the other releases I have, but the songs are just as great as they always are. Sounds like a live drummer, too. I know at one point Jayde from Viscera was drumming for Bowel Fetus, but without the cover with me I have no way of knowing if it's him or not. Nice old school death metal riffs paired with doom parts and vocals that sound like a clogged toilet. Great stuff!)

PATISSERIE - "A Preview of Gore Whirlwind Autopsy Holocaust to Come: Special 2007 Tour" CDR (I love all of the Patisserie stuff, but it's so much better with a live drummer. While I was playing with Scat, Patisserie played a show with us in Ottumwa, IA and I was gifted this CD at the show. 4 songs in less than 3 minutes, I need not tell you how brutal this grindcore is. It's easily the best thing I've listened to today.)

PENIS GEYSER - "A Tribute to The Smiths" CDR (26 "songs" in just over a minute. Probably the shortest CD I own, and I own this demo on cassette, too. Penis Geyser are one of the best current noisecore acts, but this is too short to even write about, really.)

PISSED CUNT - CDR (Pavel has been writing me since the 90s. We used to trade tapes of grind demos then, now we trade links occasionally. His love of grindcore hasn't faded any since those days. Pissed Cunt were a really good grindnoise band, similar to what PTAO does, but without the avant garde elements. Just straight-up noisecore blasts that follow short, structured parts. I'm sure more people would be aware of them had they gotten better recordings, but this lo-fi sound isn't off-putting at all. In fact, I'd say it enhances this somewhat. This CDR is a collection of previously released material, including the compilation they gave me for "Where's Your Beard?". 72 minutes was an awful lot of this to sit through, but I made it okay.)

POOPY NECROPONDE - "We're All Going to Tax You" CDR (With every new solo release Poopy does, I'm surprised at how great they are. It's easy to forget how good of a musician he is when so much of his output is silly and cranked out quickly, but when left alone to tinker with his recordings, the results are phenomenal. The first song makes up half of this disc, and it's a creepy, noisy, jazzy song with lyrics reminding us of how fucked we are, basically. The 20 minutes went by quickly and held my interest the entire time. The "Corn Syrup Song" is musically similar, and while the vocals are somewhat irritating, the lyrics are thought-provoking in that they connect the dots of how we're all being fucked by corn syrup. A good chunk of this sounds like that great, early, jazzy German rock (think Brainticket and Amon Düül) stuff that I love so well. Really tense and desperate sounding. I really enjoyed this one.)

SEPTIC INCUBATION / ANAL DEATH FETUS - split CDR (I'm not into this Septic Incubation stuff at all today. My sense of humor is blown after listening to Nihilist Commando, I guess, and this just sounds stupid. Lots of gore vocals, drum machine blades and harsh noise. No thanks. Not today, anyway... Anal Death Fetus are even worse. I have a sneaking suspicion the same guy is responsible for both of these atrocities.)

SNUFF PEDDLER / MENSTRUAL NOISE MADNESS / DIGITAL FLATULENCIA - 3 way CDR (I've been putting this one off for a while based on the dumb song band names, but it's a lot better than I thought it would be. Snuff Peddler kind of sound like Slough, but with better production and pitch-shifted vocals. The intros before the songs are annoying because they're as long as the songs are, but the songs themselves are pretty good. M.N.M. do a ton of really short noisecore songs with two people screaming over guitar noise and a hyper-fast drum machine that sounds like it's playing the same blast for each song. I enjoyed their songs more than Snuff Peddler's. Digital Flatulencia were the least enjoyable for me, but that whole cyber-gore stuff never interested me. There's some interesting stuff going on sonically throughout, but the music itself isn't my thing.)

STRADION - "Gayboys From St. Louie" CDR (I listened to this once when I got it a few years ago and remember laughing at how terrible it was with my friend Brian, but today it seems to be a lot more enjoyable. This is one of Jeremy from SATAN GOD'S bands. The guy has been around as long as I have and we've traded some tapes over the years. We're not quite in the same scene, but we have some shared contacts, I guess. Anyway, this is one long track, nearly 9 minutes in length. The cover says this line-up formed specifically to write and record this piece, then broke up the next day. The song itself is a sprawling opus of thrash, death metal, doom and other experimental sounds. It's quite ambitious and often doesn't work very well, but there are a lot of moments where it does. The recording is decent, but thin sounding, and the cover is printed on hot pink paper. Yep, this is a strange one. It'd be interesting to know more about where their heads were when they doing this CD.)

TEA PARTY VIOLENCE / GRUESOME TOILET - split CDR (T.P.V. is a lot less noisy than I remember it being. This sounds like the sort of sound experimentation you'd hear on those old Eerie Materials compilations back in the early 90s. It's both interesting and irritating. There's lots of repetition, some breakbeat drums and a few blastbeats that only last a few seconds. Very little going on by way of vocals, but when they do pop up they're always odd sounding like they're pitched up or treated somehow. Strange stuff, but I like this. Gruesome Toilet is a great one man project from Oklahoma. Complete sewage noisecore with filthy sound, lots of blasting and inhuman sounding vocals.)

VISCERA - "Promo CD 2003" CDR (This is the exact same material as the "Body Basics" CDR released on Prolapse Records. I've already written about that one, so I'll skip it here.)

WITHIN A MIND - "7 Songs" CDR (No clue if this was released or not. The drummer/singer sent it to me a long time ago with some Mongoloid Witchcraft stuff he was working on. This stuff is difficult to describe. It's occasionally thrashy, but sometimes crosses over into death metal territory. There are a lot of progressive and technical moments throughout. There's a Misfits cover on here and an 18 second long Voivod cover. The musicianship is rock solid, but the recording is a little rough. Maybe this was a rough mix? I'm not really sure after all these years.)

ZOMBIE HATE BRIGADE - "Demo 2006" CDR (I distinctly remember trading this away years ago thinking I could find another copy, but I never got around to ordering another copy. Since then the band has disowned it and has stopped selling it. Today I found it in this box. Weird.... ZHB cane about after Yeast Infection fell apart. I believe three of the guys from Yeast Infection are in this demo. This does sound different from the stuff that came later, but it's not terrible. It's less chunky and more melodic. It sounds like a less brutal version of Yeast Infection. The recording is decent for a demo and Paul's drumming is strong. Not a bad starting point for a band, but if you're missing this in your collection, you're not missing much.)

V/A - "Wild Asparagus Igloo Lamentations" CDR (Another WCFOM compilation, as if you couldn't have guessed from the title. Turkey Shoot start things off with a mellow country song about whiskey barrels that sounds like it could have been lifted from one of Daniel Johnstons' albums. Slop Cake contributes a single track of noise stuff that sounds as if it has been pitched down quite a bit. Interesting stuff, sonically. Dick Panthers are great, as always. If they've never had the opportunity to play this stuff at a Holiday Inn at some point in there history, things aren't right in the world. Socialistic Johnny Goblet give us a 12 minute mess of guitar solos, samples and various noises. I'm at a loss as to how to accurately describe this stuff. I suppose that's an accomplishment in itself. Dreemweeverz sounds like so many of Food's other projects: his lazy vocals over guitar with no percussion. I can only assume that Timmie J. Malmsteem's Rising Pants is Tim from That One Band doing a power metal pisstake. The vocals are super annoying on these tracks. The Loving Couples are pretty good, really cheesy keyboard stuff with ridiculous vocals and  splashing water sounds (?). That One Band are always great, like a more metal version of Sockeye. Cauliflower Ass & Bob also also great here with three drunk, miserable country songs.)

My Two Cents: The Box of Skinnies Pt. 3

Continuing adventures through the box of CDs I rarely listen to because of their odd packaging. Again, I don't consider myself to be a writer or an expert on anything. These synopsizes are a product of too much time on my hands at work and nothing else to do. I contradict myself often and find myself typing the same things over and over again. 

ABORT MASTICATION / PATISSERIE - split CD (A.M. play straight up death metal. Not really my thing, but the vocals are comically high in the mix and make this more entertaining than it would be otherwise. The music is solid, just not the sort of thing I'm into. Patisserie's trax are awesome, as always. Super fast, technical, brutal and sick - like everything else they've released.  Spotless production, too.)

ANAL MASSAKER - "Old Ass Fuck" CDR (Anal Massaker are one of my favorite bands. With the exception of the 2006 demo at the end I already owned all of the releases on this collection, but it's nice to have digital copies of them. The split live tape with Barcass makes up half of this CD. The sound is excellent except that the kick drum is the loudest thing on the recording and during the blast parts it creates a pulsing "woosh woosh" sound that drowns everything else out. The split 7" with Barcass is on here as well, along with the "Ka-Ka" 7", their trax from the "Noise Against the Machine" 7", the split 7" with Deche-Charge, the aforementioned "372 Trax" 2006 demo and songs from another compilation tape I forgot the name of. Everything is recorded with vetting sound quality, but mostly pretty good. The guitars are always out of tune and dropped down so low the strings are floppy. The song structures are minimal with lots of blasting. Yep, this stuff is great. Another winner from R.O.N.F..)

ANAL MUSTARD / PERMANENT DEATH - "Drenched in Noise" CDR (A.M. play super noisy short blasts of goregrind. On every one of their trax the samples before the songs (all from South Park) are way longer than the songs themselves. This sounds like a boombox recording, maybe 4 track, but things are clear enough to make out all of the instruments. They'd be way better without the stupid samples, though. It's difficult to make out what's going on with this Permanent Death material. It sounds like a full band playing, but everything is completely maxed out and it sounds like harsh noise when they play fast parts. It's so over-the-top it's impossible not to like it. This CDR is less than 12 minutes, the perfect length for this kind of stuff.)

ASTRO LAXATIVE STRETCH - "The Rats in the Walls" CDR (This is pretty decent, another solo affair from Food Fortunata, I think. Its a bunch of short, sloppy punk songs with stupid vocals and junk rock solos. The addition of drums would help this greatly, but it's still fairly enjoyable without them.)

BACON AXE DECISION - CDR (This is a bunch of fun, upbeat punk songs with programmed drums and memorable riffs. Food's vocals are pretty good this time around, though it's difficult to make out what's being said most of the time. I've got nothing else to say about it. Sorry.)

BARNACLE BEAK - "Songs For the Workin' Man" CDR (Another one from the Wheelchair camp. This one is great. It's just vocals and acoustic guitar with electric guitar solos over it, but Food's vocals are really lively with funny lyrics and the guitar playing is really aggressive. The acoustic guitar is being strummed so hard it sounds like strings should be breaking. The electric leads over everything are directionless and really sloppy. I'm not doing this stuff justice by describing it. It's really dumb, but really enjoyable.)

BEARTRAP / CUNTS - "Tokyo Kuso Noise Grind Split" CDR (I've written much about Beartrap and what makes them great elsewhere on this blog. This stuff sounds like it was recorded during rehearsal and there aren't any of Tim's spoken introductions on this recording. The guitar could be louder, but the noisecore blasts on here are sloppy and fun. Cunts are also from Japan and are a two man outfit consisting of just drums and vocals. They're normally pretty good, but this recording is lousy and doesn't show how powerful they usually sound. I picked this CDR up at a record store in Tokyo years ago. It was because of this CD that I asked Beartrap to be the other band on the Stab! split.)

BERMUDA TRIANGLES - "Terror in the Tropics" CDR (Jason from CNP + Suppression sent me this as part of a trade a few years ago. I really like that Jason kept at it once the bottom fell out of that whole powerviolence scene, experimenting with different styles and shifting the focus of his label to releasing projects he and his friends do. This is one such project, and it's a tough one to pin down. Most of it seems to have been recorded using vocals, synth and a drum machine. If this were less weird it could be labeled synth-pop, but it's strange enough that this would be right at home in the Wheelchair Full of Old Men catalog. The arrangements are really minimal, sometimes borderline industrial sounding. This whole thing sounds like it could have been recorded in the mid-80s, actually. I can't say I enjoyed this very much. I'd rather hear his more aggressive stuff.)

BÊTE NOIRE / BOWEL FETUS - "Death By Static" CDR (I was in contact with the guy that did Bête Noire years ago, but I only acquired this CDR recently. It's been a long time since I've listened to any of his releases, and to tell the truth, I picked this up for the Bowel Fetus material. Harsh noise is a genre I want to like more than I already do, but my short attention span won't allow it. I think the problem is that I tend to listen to music intently, not as background. Focusing too much attention on sounds that rarely changes for more than 10 minutes at a time wears me out. As harsh noise goes, this is pretty good. There's some nice use of stereo effects and while the sounds are mostly one-dimensional, there's some interesting texture throughout. Bowel Fetus are a terrific one-man drum machine death metal band from Australia with the most exaggerated gore vocals ever. The riffing often sounds like old Autopsy and there's lots of blasting. As with most of his releases, the recording sounds great. This stuff is great.)

BILLY CRYSTAL METH - "6 Song Promo" CDR (We recorded this less than a month into our existence as a band on my 4 track. Everything was recorded live in one take without any overdubs, so it sounds pretty crummy and there are fuck-ups all over it. The other members had no idea we were even recording the day they showed up to practice. I just mic'ed everything quickly and recorded it so we'd have something to give away at shows. The last song was made up on the spot. It's strange hearing these songs before everything was slowed down. This isn't pretty, but it served it's purpose.)

CADAVER REMOVAL TECHNICIAN - "Knick-Knacks for Neceophiliacs" CDR (I'm pretty sure I got this from Ern/Vomit Spawn, though I can't remember if he had a hand in this or not. I thought I recognized his voice as backing vocals towards the end. It's a fairly decent rip-off of Catasexual Urge Motivation, and that's not an easy thing to pull off. The riffs and bass sounds are similar anyway. The vocals are kinda weak and a couple of the songs suck, but everything else about this is okay.) 

CEDRIC'S LETTUCE / ANAL SADNESS - split CDR (I was kind of worried about having to write about C.L. because I like the guy behind the project and I know he reads my posts regularly. Luckily, this is pretty good. With the exception of every song sounding the same, I really liked this. I may have gotten the bands reversed when I labeled this, but I don't remember C.L. having drums. The combination of primitive harsh noise and drum machine blasting is great. I'm sure there are other projects like this, but I haven't heard any. Anal Sadness is pretty dumb, though. Sounds like someone fucking around with a cheap keyboard through tons of distortion.)

C.S.M.D. / GORGONIZED DORKS - split CDR (I'm really happy with how this release turned out. C.S.M.D. sound different on most of their recordings, but they're always great. Their stuff on here sounds like it might have been improvised, but it all flows together really well. It's cosmic and almost psychedelic sounding. Their first track on here is one of my favorite noisecore recordings. Gorgonized Dorks like to switch things up as well. This stuff is fairly psychedelic sounding, too. There's nice use of delay throughout and the keyboard pushes this into sci-fi territory, or maybe low budget horror soundtrack territory. Either way, this is really good. It's nice to hear different approaches to a genre that's mostly devoid of innovation.)

DeSALVO - "Tonguescraper Pts 1&2 / Get in the Black Van" CDR (After searching for a copy of the first Stretchheads LP for 10+ years, I finally found a copy on eBay. I found P6's email address online somewhere and fired off a proposal to do a CD version of it on Mortville. He wrote back explaining that the masters were owned by the label and wouldn't be released without a ridiculous amount of money and a percentage of each CD sold going to the label. Fuck that... Anyway, he was kind enough to send me this demo of his new band through the post and it ended up being great, too. The "singer" and drummer both came from Stretchheads, so there's enough of that old noisy sound retained to make me instantly like this. It really does sound like Stretchheads covering old Helmet. Just think about that for a minute and how awesome that would be... These songs eventually found a home years later on Rock Action Records and they released a killer full-length CD.)

GRÜNT GRÜNT - "Promo" CDR (These same songs are on their s/t CD and I wrote about it earlier. I love this stuff. It's crazy metal-free grindcore from France, spastic and all over the place with ridiculous vocals. I still have some of their stuff for sale in my distro. People have no idea what they're missing out on.)

ENBILULUGUGAL - "Cultivating Goat Vomit" CDR (What a mess... I'm not sure why, but I thought these guys would sound like Gonkulator. When this started playing I thought it was harsh noise with vocals over it, but the longer it played I started hearing guitar riffs (I think they were guitars anyway) and the faint sound of a drum machine. Everything in this recording is fried to the point of being almost Merzbow-like in sound. By the end of this I was completely sold. The horribly awesome MS Paint cover art ties everything together nicely. I'm glad I picked this up, though I should have done so years ago.)

EXIT-13 / HEMDALE - split CD (I used to have this on 7", too, but sold it because I didn't really need it on both formats. I wish I had kept it now. This CD has live bonus tracks, so I kept it instead. I used to have a bunch more Exit-13 stuff, but this seems to be all that remains now. I like the studio songs just fine, but the live bonus songs are shit, really. Oh well... I bought this for the Hemdale tracks. Since hearing their demo in the mid-90s they've been one of my favorite bands in this style. In 1997 my friends and I drove to Illinois and suffered through an all day metal fest just to see them and it was totally worth it. These tracks are a little thin sounding, but the songs themselves are great. Lots of double bass action, blasting, stupid vocals and muddy guitar riffs. "Demented Surgical Incest" is one of their best songs and it's reason alone to check this out. The live tracks sound great, as good as the studio tracks do. This stuff rules.)

FOOD FORTUNATA - "François Echidna and the Terrible Rash" CDR (The cover says this is the accompanying CD for the book of the same name. I don't remember if I have the book or not, but I must. I'm sure Food wouldn't send me one without the other. This CD is really, really good. It sounds as if a lot of effort went into this one. The songs are strong and catchy and the recording is better than usual. Food's vocals are interesting throughout and the lyrics are always either funny or clever. When Food is on, he's untouchable.)

FOSSIL FUEL - "Christmas Album" CDR (For the longest time if asked who my favorite WCFOM band were I could answer Fossil Fuel without hesitation. They might have been edged out by Breathilizör in recent years, but I've spent a good chunk of the past 15 years listening to Fossil Fuel. When I still lived with my parents I blasted all kinds of horrible noise from my stereo and Fossil Fuel were the only band they complained about. My stepfather would open my door and yell "What in the FUCK is this SHIT you're listening to?!?" It's great when they can provoke a reaction like that in a sea of all the other crap I was listening to. That's impressive. This was recorded after a period of inactivity, but you'd never know by listening to it. It's just as awesome as any of the old cassettes. Drunken, twisted versions of all the holiday favorites plus a ton of original songs - all stupid and awesome. My copy came affixed to a red Christmas card with a lovely drawing of a reindeer being stabbed in the head with a knife. That sort of thing will get you in the holiday spirit real quick.)

FUCK OFF AND DIE - "Tentative Incisions" CDR (These guys play decent grindcore. Not particularly fast or flashy, but they're certainly capable musicians. The recording is a little thin and the drums sound like plastic Tupperware bowls, but the songs are pretty good. There's a lot of chunky death metal parts on here, more so than I remembered there being when I've listened to this in the past, but this is primarily grindcore. Nothing great, but I've certainly heard mountains of CDs that were worse. Worth checking out, anyway.)

FUNERAL MONGOLOIDS - "Swastika of Love" CDR (Finland's F.M. are one of the better noisecore bands in recent years. All of their stuff sounds like it could have been recorded in the late 80s. Their releases are consistently good, this one is no exception. 16 solid minutes of sloppy blasting, noise and amplifier destruction. I've had this CD for a few years now but didn't notice the yellowed with age, German language, folded up page from "Mein Kampf" inside the packaging until I went to put this on my iPod. I already loved this CD, but that makes me like it even more. Do yourself a favor and check them out.)

GROSS / VOMIT SPAWN - "White Claudia / Live Boot From a Keg Party" CDR (No clue who Gross is, but it's super lo-fi and harsh. The guitars sound like they might be keyboards ran through a distortion pedal, the vocals are one dimensional screaming and they drums sound like they came from a Casio keyboard. Everything is pushed into the red and maxed out. I already had this Vomit Spawn stuff on cassette, but bought this CDR recently because I hoped it would sound better on CDR. It doesn't. Even with the lousy sound, these guys sound really fucking intense. Vomit Spawn were one of the greatest grind bands ever.)

GRUPA X - "Fuck D(emo)" CDR (It took some work figuring out who these Russians were. All of the text on the cover was in Cyrillic. I had no recollection of acquiring this when I pulled it out of the box just now, no clue what it would sound like. It was a nice surprise to find some catchy grindcore on this thing. It's a bit on the primitive side with a lot of HC influence and there are moments that remind me of Patereni, but without all the dazzling guitar work. It reminds me of Irritate, too. This is meat and potatoes stuff, solid all the way through and the recording is perfect. I always feel stupid when I find I've been sitting on something great for years.)

GRUPA X / K.P.I.P.S.E.N.B.D.S.M. / SAUERKRAUT - "All We Need is Slivovitza" CDR (I guess Trifon from Sauerkraut sent me the above CD along with this one. I didn't make the connection until I translated Grupa X's name into English characters. Grupa X's material isn't recorded as well this time around, but the playing and style is consistent. Still somewhat primitive making it more appealing to me than it would be otherwise. Sounds like a 4 track recording. Other than the floor tom maxing out every time it's hit, everything sounds pretty good. The second band is a lot noisier with a live recording of really short songs, most of which would be considered HC, but there's a load of short noisecore songs, too. Not terrible, but nothing to get excited about either. Sauerkraut are the best of the three with a raw rehearsal recording of short grind/noise songs. The drumming seems to be tighter than usual this time around and you can hear the band laughing at themselves between some of the songs. I love it when stuff like that is left in.)

HOMOGENIZED TERRESTRIALS - "The Amazing Knife Throwing Monkeys of Pluto" CDR (Thinking back on it, Homogenized Terrestrials was probably the first ever noise or experimental music I heard, all thanks to my friend Brian's older brother working with the guy behind H.T. at our local grocery store for a brief period in the early 90s. I acquired a bunch of his tapes, either directly or by inheriting them from friends, but this was the first CD - released right at the beginning of CDR technology, and among the very first burned CDs I owned. The material on this CD was originally released on cassette back in 1986. I'm still not sure how this stuff is created. A lot of it sounds like looping and sound collage, but this was recorded before digital editing and sounds as if it would have been a lot of work editing it together on tape. Regardless of how it was created, this stuff is often nightmarish in sound, like a bad acid trip. Snippets of indistinguishable audio repeat under layers of reverb and feedback creating a thick, dense, dream-like mood; one track bleeding into the next. This is so much better in my 30s than it was in my teens.)

IMMOLATION - "Providence" CD (I know fuck all about Immolation. Growing up and buying death metal cassettes with my lunch money there were a lot of important bands I didn't get to hear. Once I started listening to grindcore and Sore Throat I lost interest in death metal and never got around to checking out a lot of bands people consider to be crucial. I've also never once heard Malevolent Creation and, outside of their collected 7"s on those Relapse compilations, I've never heard Incantation. My friend Brian liked Immolation back in high school, though, so we went to see them when they played in Des Moines - the first time since the early 90s, apparently. This EP, released by Scion, sounds great and the songs are crushing. I don't often have the urge to listen to death metal, but this stuff is great. I guess you don't get to record for a car company if you're shit. I don't like it enough to want  to check out more of their releases, but I'll enjoy the shit out of this CD for free.)

JAPANESE TORTURE COMEDY HOUR - "50,000 JTCH Fans..." CD (I had this playing in the background while I was paying bills this morning, worried about finances and I'm sure it made my mood even worse. I was sweating with concern and this was the worst possible thing to be listening to at the time. Plain and simple, this CD is filled with walls of noise. Not one constant sound like HNW, but there's never a break from unpleasant noise. This was recorded back when JTCH was still just Scott Hull's project and there's fuck-all information in the liner notes.)

KNIGHT, DAN & THE DON BLEW TRIO - "Christmas!" CD (It's strange, but the only Christmas music I like are the jazzy albums. Dan Knight is a concert pianist I know nothing about. Don Blew, however, is a legendary figure in Ottumwa's music scene. I'm not old enough to have seen him in his heyday, but I jumped at the chance to see him when they played a Christmas concert at our high school years back. I know his son, Tony, through my parents. He's a funny guy, really nice and easy to get along with. He's a talented musician, gifted artist and pretty good with a paint brush. Don and his two sons provided the instrumental support for Dan that evening and on this CD. These are jazz arrangements of Christmas songs with solo trade-offs between the piano and guitar. Both Dan and Don play with fluidity. The recording is live, but with a pretty decent mix. This is excellent.)

LÄRM - "Extreme Noise" CD (I haven't listened to this in years, but when I got it I was hugely into it and listened to it almost constantly. My friend Zeno had dubbed me a bunch of their stuff and I loved it, but the only release I was ever able to track down a legit copy of was their live 7". When this CD was released it was a blessing and I jumped on it. I must have one of the earliest copies because there's an insert apologizing for the fucked up track listing and gave the correct listing on the opposite side. I've since seen this in jewel case packaging, but mine is in a pocket folder with a booklet. Upon revisiting it today for the first time in nearly a decade I found it to be a lot sloppier and less "brutal" than I remembered it being. Everything is so out of tune, mistakes all over the place, shitty recordings, etc. It's amazing people hold them in such high regard when there are other bands that achieved that same accidental noisecore sound and are almost completely forgotten. I remember listening to this and thinking how extreme it was. Today it still sounds extreme, but equally sloppy. It does tighten up slightly towards the end, I guess. Still really enjoyable, but not at all like I remembered.)

LETTUCE VULTURES - "Another CD Full of Songs That No One Really Wants to Hear" CDR (This is the newest release and it sounds different than the others, like there's a new drum machine and someone else playing guitar. Stylistically this is pretty much the same, but it's updated sonically.The lyrics are a lot easier to make out and I like the addition of backing vocals this time around.)

LETTUCE VULTURES - "Patrick" CDR (The cover says this was recorded for one of their/his friends, Patrick, who died recently and the first song deals with the subject. The rest of this CD is business as usual, the same punk rock with great, sloppy guitar solos and lyrics dealing with politics and current events. Food's vocals sound as if they were recorded in the bathroom on this one. There's a strange hollow sound on this entire disc. This is pretty good, like all the other Lettuce Vultures stuff.)

LETTUCE VULTURES - "This is Why We Don't Do Long Songs / I'm a Little Bit Disappointed in the Current State of the World" CDR (Compiled here are the first two Lettuce Vulture cassette releases. I'm really enjoying this today. The first demo is slow and noisy and the guitar sound is really scratchy. Lots of stupid, noisy solos on here, too, like he's channeling Greg Ginn or Ted Falconi. Food's vocals are really lazy and are a stark contrast to the angry, sarcastic anti-authority lyrics he's singing. The songs are all between 4 and 6 minutes long and are really repetitive. On the second tape the songs are all less than 2 minutes long, but more or less sound the same. The vocals are a little more inspired and the guitar isn't quite as noisy, but little else has changed. This CDR was very enjoyable.)

MALACHI / THE BASTARD NOISE - "The Immortals" CD (I really liked the Malachi half of this CD. It's really heavy, dynamic and dark sounding. Usually the addition of cello sends my eyeballs rolling into the back of my head, but it was a nice touch on this stuff. Their second track is a long atmospheric kraut-ish noise piece with dreamy, mellow female vocals in the background. Really cool... B.N. tracks are pretty good, too. I haven't listened to much of their stuff, but I was expecting screaming over harsh oscillator blips - not dark ambient with melodic vocals over it. I guess they haven't done that "MOLOCH!!!!!!" thing for a while now, but that's what I was expecting. This was a pleasant surprise.)

MAYHEM DECAY CUDGEL - "The Scene is You!!!" CDR (Zach Howard released this demo collection on his label Fuck Music Productions. Up until now I've only heard these guys on compilations. I think this falls into the accidental noisecore category. It sounds like they're trying to play "real" structured songs, but the results are a complete mess. Whether intentional or not, these songs are wonderfully disjointed, sloppy and noisy. The drums always sound as if they're trying to keep up with the guitar, the guitar sounds like a buzzsaw and the vocals sound like a rabid dog devouring humans. Zero progression as a band from one release to the next, in playing ability or in recording quality. Everything recorded on a boombox either out of necessity or for maximum noise potential. Only they know which. I'm not sure it matters.)

MIKE LOVE 666 - "Album #12" CDR (I can't remember listening to this before today. I got it with a huge package from Reality Impaired years ago and it got lost in the shuffle. This is noisy stuff, lots of popular music samples looped with garbled noise and spoken samples over them; equal parts harsh noise, plunderphonics with a touch of trip-hop.)

MINCH - "7" Collection 1990-2006" CD (Everyone into noisy music knows Minch. They're one of the oldest noisecore bands here in America and one of the most revered. This CD collects all of their vinyl output. I had this long thing typed out about how I didn't really like any of their material except for the first EP and the split with Mamarracho thinking maybe it was a case of too many cooks: fans of the original Minch incarnation getting involved and diluting it somehow, but listening to this again today I've decided that was a bunch of horse shit. Most of this stuff is really great, but I will say that the improved sound on the recordings from 1998 on loses a lot of the charm from the earlier stuff. There's a lot of surface noise from the vinyl transfers this material was taken from. It's a shame the original masters couldn't have been utilized for this CD, but it is what it is. This, too, is out of print now.)

NASTY SAVAGE - "Psycho Psycho 2 Minute Sampler" CDR (I've never listened to this before today because I wanted to hear the whole album intact. I never got around to buying a copy (shame on me, they're one of my favorite metal bands). This CDR has every song on the album, but only the first 2 minutes of each song. Every song cuts abruptly at the 2 minute mark. Sucks, because this is really fucking good. This is classic Nasty Savage, no updating their sound at all. This sounds like a natural progression from "Penetration Point", recorded really well, too. Those great backwards sounding riffs are still here, solid drumming and Ronnie's vocals sound excellent. I really need to find a legit copy of this now. I feel stupid for not buying this already. Fuck.)

NAZARENE WHORE - "Black Vulva Christ EP" CDR (8 minutes of 2-3 second trax of drum machine noisecore with pitch-shifted gore vox. No guitars, just the same drum machine blast for 8 minutes. Every song sounds identical.)

NOCTURNE FOR A DYING PLANET - CDR (It took me a long time to figure out what this CD was when I ripped it. There was no title on the front, no label on the CD, etc. I Google'd the first song title hoping it would dig something up and it ended up being the band/project's name. You'd never know that by looking at the cover, though. "Nocturne For a Dying Planet" was listed in the same font, same size and directly in line with the same spacing as the other titles. Just as it was difficult figuring out what this was, I'm having a difficult time formulating words to describe the sounds on this disc. It's dark and minimal most of the time. Not quite "noise", but not active enough to be considered music exactly. The whole thing has sort of a thriller/horror soundtrack quality to it. The tracks flow seamlessly into one another and give this a narrative quality.)

NOISE NAZI / CEDRIC'S LETTUCE - split CDR (Fuck, all of this noise is wearing on me. N.N. sounds like it might just be one dude. This is really lo-fi noise stuff, sounds like pre-existing recordings ran through loads of distortion and effects. It's not particularly harsh or interesting. I did like the song with the repeated "Nazi faggots" sample throughout. That was funny. Cedric's Lettuce are the better of the two projects, for sure, but their material on the Anal Sadness split was better. This is still really harsh, lots of stupid keyboard playing treated with mountains of distortion. Some of the tracks are better than others, but mostly this is pretty good.)

NOJSBOJS - s/t 7"
FILTHY CHARITY / S.R.M.P. - split 7"
MAMARRACHO - "Fifty-Nine" 7"
IMPALED NORTHERN MOONFOREST - s/t 7"
PROJECTILE AFTERBIRTH - "Hats Off to Larry" 7"
BRAINBOMBS - "Stigma of the Ripper" 7" (This is a CDR I made from 7"s I ripped. Nojsbojs - pronounced "Noise Boys", I assume, are a fantastic noisecore band from Sweden. This was one of my favorites in the late 90s, sounds even better today. The noise blasts are great, but there's lots of interesting stuff going on between them. Sadly overlooked, this band...Filthy Charity are a decent grind band from France with ridiculous vocals. Sounds like a drum machine, too. S.R.M.P. are really sloppy, but noisy and enjoyable. This record always sells cheap when I see it. Not sure why it's not collectable like those other Psychomania releases are... Mamarracho are pure insanity, one of the greatest noisy bands ever. Nobody else sounds like them and all of their releases are excellent. Another one of my regrets with Mortville was that I couldn't make that discography CD happen. I tried... INMF was Seth Putnam's short-lived acoustic black metal project. It's a funny idea, but enjoyable for about 2 minutes. Still, I'm happy to have this in my collection... To my knowledge, Projectile Afterbirth only did this one release. I didn't find out until recently that one of the guys from Stench of Corpse was behind it. I guess this is a tribute of sorts to "Wildman" Larry Fischer. His vocals are sampled over tense background noise and explosions of harsh noise and distorted vocals. This really is a strange record, not at all what I expected given the name of the project. The noise just underlines Larry's mental illness and makes it really dark. This is creepy stuff... Brainbombs are consistently great, of course, but in recent years I've given up on collecting all of their records. Under-pressing things on purpose is just stupid and I'm not playing that game. I'll still listen to their records, though, if I can find rips of them. If they don't want people downloading their music, they should press enough copies to meet demand. Fuck them.)

NUCLEAR VULVA / LARVATUS - "Black Mass Dysentery / Unholy Demo 1" CDR (Nuclear Vulva do a weird mixture of techno/dance music with noise blasts, the kind of stuff I imagine Eurotrash listen to while stuffing themselves full of drugs and hanging out at all-night raves looking for sluts to creep on. It's all really bouncy and happy sounding and the noise parts fit in seamlessly. I'm not really into this, but it seems like its well done. Larvatus are great! Total blasting grind/noise with everything completely blown-out on the recording. The first trac  is cut-up not unlike Aunt Mary's recordings, but the rest either fade out at the end or end abruptly. I wish the whole thing was cut-up like the first song.)

PENIS ENLARGEMENT / SAUERKRAUT - split CDR (The cover that came with my CDR is a cassette cover, so I don't know if this was released on CDR or not. Penis Enlargement are an Italian noisecore band made mostly of members from 2 Minuta Dreka, I believe. I never understood why a change in style required a whole different band. I love it when bands change styles completely between releases. Anyway, P.E. are great. It's nothing more than talking between noise blasts, all recorded on a boombox or single input recorder. Everything is in the red, so the noise blasts are nice and maxed out. Sauerkraut are amazing, the little band that could. They get better with each release, but it's their shortcomings that make them great. They sound like all those South American grindcore bands that are always "off" somehow. There isn't much to complain about on this release, though. Sure, the recording is a little strange, but the playing is fairly tight. The vocals are ridiculous on the entire recording, but that's a mark in their favor. Lots of cover songs, as is usually the case for these guys. This stuff oozes charisma, that's what makes them so great.)

PESTILENT DECAY - "Traces of a Massacre" CDR (I don't remember where I got this, but there was a note written inside the cover from "Rodrigo" explaining that this was his new band. The only Rodrigo I know was from Sweden and ran a label I traded with. Anyway, this is decent grindcore with dual vocals: one pitch shifted, the other doing highs. This kind of sounds like those old Retaliation recordings, but not as good. Sounds like they're using a drum machine, but it doesn't sound generic like they often do. If the vocals were better this would be really good. The whole thing is less than 6 minutes long.)

POOP SHIP DESTROYERS - "Live @ Paroxis '94" CDR (Paroxis was an annual live music event put on by a local zine, Real Life, and hosted by my friend Mike in his basement. Poop Ship Destroyers were a short-lived band that probably played more than this one show, but this was the only time I saw them that I can remember. I guess this would be considered punk, but it's not very aggressive in style. It sounds as if they're making the songs up as they go and between songs you can hear them discussing song structures. Everything is really sloppy and out of tune, the vocals are barely audible (mostly because of the strange mix coming out of the PA) and when they're present they're mumbled. On it's own, this is pretty lousy. It's a nice piece of nostalgia for me, but if you weren't there when it happened, it probably wouldn't interest you.)

RHINESTONE RASH - "Strange Sessions" CDR (My friend Travis played with these guys for a while. I only got to see them play once before things fell apart. They played a show with BCM at Travis' studio, but the singer didn't show up for some reason or other leaving the guitarist to take over vocal duties for the night. Outside of that one show, this three song CDR is all I know of them. The first thought I had while listening to this was how much the singer sounds like Doc Corbin Dart of the great Crucificks. So much so that it's unbelievable to think he's never heard them before, but apparently that's the case. These guys were inspired by the old LA scene, specifically X, and Crucifucks never entered their consciousness. This is "punk", not "core", everything well played and with that song writing economy that goes along with that genre. No parts wasted, just enough to get things done, not skimping on anything in the process. The recording, of course, is spotless. I can't imagine many people heard this. Too bad...)

SCHNAUZER - "Live 11/30/2002" @ The Phantasy" CDR (Spotless soundboard recording of these Ohio goofballs. I think most of this ended up as bonus tracks on the "When Your Bitch is in Heat" CD. The banter between songs is really stupid, so I don't listen to this very often. I love their records, though. I guess those are just stupid enough. 45 minutes of this at once is a bit much to endure, too.)

SCREAMING AFTERBIRTH - "Milwaukee Metalfest 2003 Promo" CDR (No clue how I obtained this one as I haven't attended any of the fests. I suppose as far as death metal in 2003 goes, you could do a lot worse. Nice recording with tight drumming and a pingy snare sound, pig squeal vocals and solid guitar playing. There's a Terrorizer cover on here, so at least they're influenced by the right kind of bands. These six songs ended up on their split CD with Mincing Fury and the Gutteral Clamor of Queer Decay, so if you have that one you aren't missing anything here. Not too shabby...)

SMOKESTACK AND THE FOOTHILL FURY - "Ain't Gonna Pine" CDR (This guy jumped on a show I saw in Iowa City at the last minute last year. It was pretty impressive; he was playing guitar, drums and singing all at once. His drum set consisted of a kick and a snare, both operated by a modified double bass pedal. He was a true one man band and the audience loved him. He had a stack of these CDs up by the stage while he played and told people to feel free to take one, but urged them to donate some money if they could since he wasn't getting paid for the show. I was happy to throw in a couple of bucks to get a copy. This is high energy, raucous bluesy stuff with lots of slide guitar. Think Mojo Nixon on his earliest albums, but without the stupid lyrics. I was initially let down by how good this CD sounded after his raw performance on stage, but while over-produced, this sounds really good. The songs are performed with just as much energy here. I'm really enjoying this today.)

SPAZZ / LACK OF INTEREST - "Double Whammy!" split CD (I had this on vinyl, too, but sold it and kept this CD for the bonus tracks. I haven't listened to it since the 90s. Again, Spazz sound painfully average to me. No clue how they blew up as big as they did. I don't know who's vocals are who's, but the deep death metal vocals and the Infest-like vocals are stupid. I've always thought L.O.I.'s vocals were stupid, too. I actually prefer the original guy's vocals. Somewhere I have mp3s of an LP they recorded with Trevor but never released. It's pretty good. If you can look past these vocals, the rest of their music is pretty enjoyable. The bonus material from both bands is live, both with good soundboard quality. There's 20 minutes from Spazz and 7 from L.O.I..)

SYSTRAL - "Fever" CD (These guys had a lot of buzz surrounding them while they were still together in the mid-90s. I picked this CD based on a recommendation from my friend Zeno, but I could never get into it. It sounds like all those pretentious, apocalyptic crust/HC bands that probably heard Neurosis and tried to do something similar (I'm not crazy about Neurosis either, btw). If the high vocals weren't so pansy sounding I could probably bring myself to like this more than I do, but it's too emo for me. The longer it plays the more I hate it.)

TDFNTFOTCFISOHOTDN / SAUERKRAUT - "2009 Split" CDR (Amazingly enough, that first band name is an acronym, but I can't remember what it stands for now. This sounds like a metal version of Buka, even the recording sounds the same. This is really sloppy, but in no way jokey. Another case of a band reaching too far and coming up short. Sauerkraut are fairly noisy on this release. Lots of short songs and sloppy covers of classic grindcore songs. The recording is complete shit, sounds like a garbled mp3 at 32 kbps.)

TOTAL YOUTH - "Destroy Corporate Hardcore" CDR (A convincing jab at hardcore punk by Poopy Necroponde and company (maybe it's just him?). This shit rules. The songs are short, fast and tough with shouted vocals about fake punks and about how metal sucks. The cover art has a quiz on it to determine if you're punk or not. I've listened to this a ton and it's always fun and entertaining. One of my favorite Poopy releases.)

TRAUMA / CALLIGERY - split CDR (This Trauma stuff is great, sounds like a lost Deicide demo from the 80s. The music isn't quite as metal, but the vocals are 100% in line with that style. This is raw death metal, but with quite a bit of melody. I dig it. Calligery also play death metal, a little less dark and melodic and a bit more thrashy than Trauma. They're also less interesting as a result of being tighter. This whole thing was pretty good, though.)

VAMPYRO / SPERMSHOT SOLDIERS - "Is This Good Enough For the Radio?" CDR (Vampyro play a weird mixture of techno, hardcore and black metal. Their vocals are annoying, but that guitar sound is raging! Sounds like Scroungers or the guitar on the Wadge demo. I guess this kinda sounds like Impaled Nazarene, but a bedroom version. S.S are a strange bunch. The first song sounded like a one man bedroom black metal project recorded on a boombox, then the second song sounded like a sloppy punk song. Third song was nearly grind/noise, etc. It's all really Lo-Fi bored-core stuff, but not too terrible.)

VENTILATOR - "EP + Unreleased" CDR (I downloaded all of this stuff from Toni/Anal Massaker on soulseek years ago. Ventilator are one of those German noisecore bands I heard about early on, but didn't get to hear until years later. To my knowledge, the only released the self titled EP and a split 7" with DSFA which I only recently obtained, but a search of Discogs shows two cassette releases I had no idea even existed before today. This CDR has four recording sessions, the first of which the s/t 7" came from. The second the split with DSFA. There are songs from both of these sessions that didn't make it on to vinyl and another two sessions totaling 37 minutes in length that weren't released at all. This stuff is more on the grinding end of the spectrum, but every song ends in a blast of noise. This is typical of most of the German noisecore bands of that era. If you like B.R.B., W.B.I., etc, it's safe to say you'll like this too. The last two sessions on here sound similar to Tumor. At least one of these guys is playing Slaughter of the Innocents now and they're also really good.)

VITAM ETERNAM - "Blackened Dreams of Nocturn" MCD (It's worth noting that this might be the first black metal band from Iowa, certainly the only black metal band from Ottumwa, and with the exception of Angelkill, they're probably the only Iowa band to have released something on Wild Rags. Having said that, I'm not into this at all. I don't like black metal, even when good friends of mine are playing it. Everything is played really well and the recording sounds great, but I don't give a fuck about this kind of music at all. EDIT: I listened to this a few times since and with repeated listens have grown to really like a lot of the guitar riffs on here. The vocals are still really annoying to me, though.)

WILSON, BRIAN - "A Conversation With Brian Wilson" 2CDR (I bought this at a record convention in Des Moines, IA sometime in the early 2000s. I guess this was broadcast over the radio because there are commercial breaks (edited out) on here. The very beginning of the first disc says "DIR is proud to present a conversation with Brian Wilson", but I have no clue what DIR is. Those don't sound like radio call letters. Maybe it was TV? There are two interviews on here, both from 1977, totaling 2 hours. The first interview talks about the career and history going back to their childhood, how they got along as brothers, Brian's views on pop music, his song writing approach, drugs, self-hypnosis, etc. The interview is cut-up with segments of their music reflecting the time period they're discussing. The second interview takes place at Brian's home and they cover "Smile", their impact on their audience, his future plans and "music nausea". I listened to this once on the drive home after buying it, then never listened to it again. I'm really enjoying it today. It's a nice break from all the harsh noise I've been spinning.)

WORMROT - "Noise" MCD (First time hearing these guys. I picked this CD up at the Immolation show as it was sitting on the table along with some Scion literature. 6 brief minutes of fucking fast grindcore with brutal vocals and tight drumming. The recording kind of sucks (not noisy enough to enhance it and not good enough to do these songs justice), but there's some quality playing going on throughout this release. I dig this one.)

XYSMA - "Swarming of the Maggots" Demo
XYSMA - "Fata Morgana" 7"
XYSMA - "Above the Mind of Morbidity" 12"
ABHORRENCE - "Vulgar Naecrlartry" Demo
CREMATORY - "Denial" 7"
(I've written about all of this Xysma stuff when I listened to that 2CD set earlier this year, but I kept this CDR for the other stuff at the end. I downloaded all of this shit from soulseek years ago when it was impossible to track down. This stuff rules, but I still like their rock albums more. Abhorrence and Crematory are both great, too.)

Z.A.T.H. - "Zebra Amplified Turd Harpoon" CDR (Z.A.T.H. is a project Food Fortunata does with Sluggisha. On each release, the letters stand for something different. They split up vocal duties evenly, alternating every song. Sluggisha's vocals are high, silly and almost freestyle rap-like. The music behind his tracks sounds like it was played on a cello or upright bass. Most of Food's vocals are pitch shifted really high, but towards the end we hear his natural voice. The music behind his tracks consist of drum machine and distorted electric bass, I think. This is a long CD, but it wasn't difficult to sit through like some of Food's releases can be.)

V/A - "Black River Recordings Compilation Vol.1" CDR (I haven't even thought about this CD since I got it, and that's been a really long time ago. Here's the line-up: Ethodius, Desolation Iced, Reality Check Review, Euphoric Downslide, The Pakman, Sonovox, Savage Acid, Mythodical Age, Self Inflicted, F2RC and something listed as Black River Improvisational. Most of this is synth based experimental stuff, some noise stuff thrown in, most of it is instrumental. All of it is fairly mellow and listenable. Not a bad way to spend 74 minutes, much better than I thought it would be.)

V/A - "Now Who's Crazy?" CD (This is a Drag City Records sampler I got from my friend Mike who worked there for a while. I'm not very familiar with most of this stuff, but a few of these artists I have full lengths from - also through Mike. The Loose Fur song is good, but the vocals are annoying. The music itself is minimal and hypnotic growing more active towards the end. Neil Michael Haggerty does sort of a folky song that I'm not much into. Azita's song is a nice piano backed singer/songwriter piece. Sounds like something you'd hear on one of Nilsson's older albums. Imitation Electric Piano are great, from a couple of the people from Stereolab. Musically they're quite similar. (smog) aren't too bad, but not something I'd reach for anytime soon. Continental/OP do an ethnic sounding instrumental. Scene Screamers are irritating. Monade sounds like something you'd hear on one of Morricone's film scores. Sounds like the woman from Stereolab singing. Alasdair Roberts does a straight-up folk song. Papa M is pretty mellow, but the song and singing are both pleasant. Bonnie "Prince" Billy is a name I've heard thrown around a lot, but this is the only song I've heard of his. It's okay, I guess. I suppose if I listened to more of his songs this might grow on me. The Suntanama sounds like a wimpy version of Roky Erickson.)

V/A - "Promo" CD (This is the first Relapse Records promo CD from 1997, the one with "PROMO" in black on an all white background. I've had this for years, have never listened to it. It's not terrible, and a lot of these bands I've not heard before today. The only bands I had heard from this were Xysma, Brutal Truth, Gore Beyond Necropsy, Merzbow, Dissecting Table and Mortician. I'll probably never listen to this again, but it was okay.)

V/A - "Riot on Ramsay St." CD (This was compiled and released as a fund-raiser for a bookshop in Australia. Most of these bands are HC with some other shit mixed in. I'm not feeling up to a track-by-track breakdown, but the stand-outs on here are Phobia (not that Phobia), Stand Against, Walsh Street Cop Killers, Vicious Circle, + Self Reliance. Most of this was lousy.)

V/A - "Solid" CD (Like the above CD, I've owned this for years and have never listened to it. In fact, this one was still sealed. Brutal Truth tracks were okay. Today is the Day did nothing for me. First time hearing Unsane, really liked them. Bongzilla are stupid and combine two things I hate: stoner rock and black metal vocals. Nightstick are terrible. Anal Cunt are great (duh!), but I'm sick of hearing this song. Soilent Green are better than I remember them being, but still not really my thing. Incantation's song is great, one of the best on here. Nile is cheesy fun. Agoraphobic Nosebleed are pretty good, too. I really haven't heard anything of theirs since their old 7" days. Blood Duster are terrific and these songs are from their best album, in my opinion. I can really only stomach 2-3 Mortician songs at a time, so this works for me. Those intros are so fucking long, though. Does anyone actually enjoy sitting through those fucking things? The Hemdale song on here is from their full length that was never released. It doesn't appear on their discography CD, either, so it's exclusive to this promo CD. Abscess are great. This song is really hardcore sounding, great leads. C.S.S.O. were one of the greatest bands ever and this is from their best period. Flesh Parade were a standout on here. First time hearing them, too. Benumb were great. Deceased were great on here, too. I need to get some of their stuff. Mindrot were heavy, but not very good. Karanoudjan aren't my thing either. If you can look past all the stoner rock, this is an okay sampler.)

V/A - "Wreckage Noise Compilation" CDR (This disc rules. Ronnald from Purulent Shitface put it together (why can't I ever remember the name of his label?). A list of the bands/projects on here says it all: Gore Beyond Necropsy, Ulcerrhoea, Nihil-Fist, Princess Army Wedding Combat, Government Alpha, Senseless Apocalypse, Fast Forward, Sickness, Gore Fuck Damage, Arsedestroyer, Noisecorefreak, T.E.F., DxIxEx, Circuit Wound + Nikidorei. There's no information listed at all and I don't think these songs are exclusive or anything, but this is a nice collection of harsh sounds.)

My Two Cents: The Box of Skinnies Pt. 2

Continuing adventures through the box of CDs I rarely listen to because of their odd packaging. Again, I don't consider myself to be a writer or an expert on anything. These synopsizes are a product of too much time on my hands at work and nothing else to do. I contradict myself often and find myself typing the same things over and over again. 

ABSTAIN - "Defy" 3" CD (This is a lot better than I remembered it being. I have a bunch of their releases, but I always remembered them being generic sounding, therefor I haven't listened to any of them in years. Maybe the music has just gotten shittier in the years since making this sound better by comparison, but I can't find a single thing to complain about on this CD. Abstain were a two piece grindcore band from California. There isn't a bass player, but the guitars are recorded really well and sound heavy enough without bass. The music is both metallic and crusty with tight drumming and lots of blasting. The vocals sound a bit like Bob from Dropdead, but not as high. They kind of sound like the vocals on those early C.F.D.L. records, too. My copy came in a limited edition gatefold cover With the regular 3" cover inside. This was short and powerful and I really enjoyed listening to it today. I'll have to go back and listen to my other Abstain stuff now.)

ABSTAIN / ARSEDESTROYER - "Live Aboard the MS Stubnitz" CD (Released on the short lived In League Wit Satan Records, as the title says, this was recorded live on an old war ship. This Arsedestroyer stuff was confusing to me when I first heard it. I remember hearing that the original vocalist died and I want to say it was a suicide, so I guess this was the first release with the new guy and it didn't sound anything like the old stuff. Now there are more Arsedestroyer releases with this sound than with the original line-up, but at the time is was shocking to me. The between song banter is ridiculous, sometimes funny, but the songs are fucking raging grindnoise. Completely manic and over the top, unrelenting noisy grindcore. Abstain's set sounds tame in comparison, but on it's own it would have been killer. They should have put their tracks first on the CD and finished strong. They added a bass player on this tour, I guess, but the bass track sounds like a fart on this recording. The rest of it sounds great, especially the vocals. Great CD all around.)

AUBE - "Metal De Metal" CD (I don't remember where I got this one from, but it's my favorite of the Aube CDs I own. All of the sounds on this were generated from metal. Even the cover is made out of metal. The majority of this is really mellow, almost dark ambient, but there are some tense moments that bring this thing to a boil on occasion. There's one lengthy section that sounds like a fork being scraped across a gong in a circular motion, but it's totally soothing - almost consuming. Writing about this doesn't do it justice. This is really fucking good, trust me.)

AUBE - "Purification to Numbness" CD (I'm positive I ordered this from the Resound catalog. I've always liked Aube, but I prefer his more ambient stuff. I'm not sure what made me check him out, but I bought his "Metal De Metal" CD and loved it. The first track on this CD is really busy, harsh and multi-layered, but it sounds like multiple tracks of the same sound stacked on top of each other and panned to create a stereo effect. The second track is considerably less harsh with some interesting textures going on and some annoying high frequency noise that shows up way too often for my ears' health. The third track is the longest and sounds kinda similar to the first. I only have a few of Aube's releases, and while I still enjoyed this, it's probably my least favorite. In a different environment as background music I'd probably enjoy it more, but while focusing my full attention on it for over an hour I became bored towards the end.)

AVULSION - "80 Trax" CDR (I made this CDR to collect all of their recordings I had. I used to do that all the time years ago. Has the following releases: "Crimes Against Reality", split 7" w/ Laceration (who I still think are terrible), "The Green Scare" 7", split 7" w/ Forced Expression, Pneumatic Values / Vilently Ill - split 7", their track from the third Slap a Ham comp, "Prince of a Thousand Theives" 7" and most of the "Crimson Foliage Hit" CD. I had to omit two tracks from the CD to make it all fit. Slavestate were one if my favorite bands from ray powerviolence scene. Avulsion were excellent, too, but slightly less so. Super fast and technical, aggressive and pissed. That "Green Scare" 7" was one of my favorites in the mid-90s.)

BEARTRAP - "Live in Japan" CDR (I fucking love Beartrap. What's not to love about it? Their brain behind the project, Tim, is a German native living in Japan working as a teacher. While still in Germany he released a few records with the great Cadaver Feast. Tim possesses no real skill as a guitarist, but his Sahara-dry sense of humor makes for great song titles (often referencing death metal bands and album titles) and between-song banter. From what I've gathered, he has a revolving door line-up consisting of whoever he can convince to perform with him. All of their recordings are entertaining, mostly because of Tim's intros, but the noise itself is fun and sloppy and would be listenable on it's own. I'm pretty sure this wasn't released. There's cover art, but I got a copy because I asked them for unreleased material for "Small Doses" and he told me to choose something from this CDR. If you liked the two songs from "Small Doses", this is where they came from. This is fantastic. It's a shame more people don't know about Beartrap.)

BILL BASSET BAND - "Juvenile and Boring" CDR (BBB was my very first musical project that wasn't just me recording solo. My friend Mike and I went to an all-day bluegrass festival a couple of towns over and recorded the first BBB tape that night. It wasn't exactly bluegrass or folk, but it was all played on acoustic guitar and a makeshift drum set fashioned from tin cans, glass jars and whatever else I could hit with a stick. The music and lyrics were all improvised and everything was recorded on a crummy tape recorder in the bomb shelter in Mike's basement. We recorded two more times, then gave it up and started playing punk rock later under the name Unisex. Nobody outside of Ottumwa heard these tapes with the exception of a few zine editors that Mike sent copies to (one giving a favorable review from which the title of this CDR, out of context, came). Years later Mike pieced together this CDR from the best bits of the three recordings and sent me a copy. I had no idea he was doing it, so it was a nice surprise when I got it. Of course it's impossible for me to listen to this objectively, but it's a fun CD with silly lo-fi songs that often break out into laughter, percussion that's too loud 100% of the time and decent guitar playing. It also serves as a time machine sending me right back to high school with nostalgia. Man, those were fun times.)

BLOOD - "Impulse to Destroy" CD (One of the greatest death metal albums recorded. To the end Blood were great. Even after they learned how to play they kept things simple and retained that scummy 80s sound. This CD is on a whole different level, though. Everything about it us great. The mid-paced parts crush and the blasts are awesomely sloppy. The guitars sound as if they're being played through broken amplifiers in an empty warehouse. The vocals have effects on them the whole time making them even more ridiculous. The songs, however, can not be fucked with. So many catchy riffs on this thing. It's incredible, an absolutely perfect death metal album. The copy I have is the reissue on Morbid Records, I believe the first time it was issued on CD. The "Recognize Yourself" 7" is on the end as bonus tracks, also excellent.)

BONESAW - "Live By the Bone... Die By the Saw" CDR (Great old-school Scottish death metal. I met Paul on MySpace and we traded a few times. I'm pretty sure this is their first demo. While their second demo was a huge improvement, this is pretty great. It never really gets too fast, staying in that great plodding mid-paced speed Autopsy did so well. The vocals are deep and gruff and the guitars are filthy sounding. Everything is recorded perfectly for this style of death metal. This is a solid debut from a band that got consistently better with each release.)

BOTTLE WALKING SNAKE - "States" CDR (50 states, 50 songs - all in alphabetical order. This is mildly entertaining as the songs are all funny and short, but it's not something I'll want to revisit any time soon.)

BOTTLE WALKING SNAKE / KOLOB TRUST FUND - split CDR (So what do BWS sound like? I didn't cover that above. It would be folky indie rock in someone else's hands, but it's too retarded to be classified as such in this instance. Lyrical content aside, this is sonically stupid. Food's vocals are high and irritating in the same way they are on one of his other projects, The Poops. It's mostly acoustic guitar and keyboard, but often it sounds like the keyboards were recorded without even listening to the guitar track. KTF, I think, is a project with Wheelchair Full of Old Men dudes and Erik from Sonic Disorder. KTF are just as dumb, but at least there's some punk and core in their music, so it's more in line with my interests. The vocals are lazy, lyrics "offensive", but mostly this is just silly.)

BOY IN LOVE - "But Mama, I Love Him" + "Pracise Make Perfec" CDR (This collects the first two Boy in Love tapes, both excellent. When I posted about "Gleegle Eagles" earlier I said there was a folk influence, but couldn't explain what made me think that. I had forgotten, but a lot of those songs appear on these tapes with just vocals and acoustic guitar and they're just as good with that minimal arrangement. Again, Scott's vocals are what makes this great. His voice is so sincere sounding and the lyrics are sometimes innocent and child-like, sometimes offensive, always funny and ridiculous.)

BREATHILIZÖR - "For the Ultimate Pain of Medusa's Love" CDR (This is arguably the best release from Ohio's most metal band. Breathilizör have been kicking around for a long time now releasing a couple tapes and a split 7" w/ Faxed Head ages ago. Then, after years of silence they started recording again and took their music more seriously (maybe?) than before. It could be they just became better musicians during their hiatus, but the playing on here in excellent and the addition of a spotless studio recording really showcases all of the greatness. The lyrics are some of toughest and most evil things ever captured on tape, all delivered with completely venomous rage. Originally released on this CDR, this recently was pressed to vinyl by Rescued From Life and should be fairly easy to track down at this point. It's terrific, one of my favorite releases coming from the Wheelchair camp.)

BREATHILIZÖR - "Something of Something Part 3" CDR (This CDR collects two of their early demo tapes. It's a lot more primitive, but just as awesome. Those brutal breakdowns that happen in every song never get old and the reverb-soaked recording of the first demo sounds like it was recorded in an abandoned cave filled with the bones of posers.  The second demo is a little clearer sounding, but none of the evil or brutality was lost in the process. This is essential listening.)

CAPSULE - "Blue" CD (Robotic Empire sent me this loose replacement disc with the Floor set I ordered, as a promo, I guess, or maybe because they had stack of them laying around. Today is my first time listening to it and it's way too active and noodly for my tastes. I don't even know what label people give to stuff like this, but it's all over the place with tons of changes, tight drumming and active guitar playing, but completely devoid of anything to grasp on to. It kind of sounds like Dillinger Escape Plan's old stuff. Occasionally there will be a cool slower part that works well, but it just switches to something discordant, fast and spazzy again after that. No clue if this is any good or not as I don't listen to this kind of stuff. The recording is really good, though, and these guys can play. I'm sure someone loves it, but I can't get into it.)

CAULIFLOWER ASS & BOB - "Bad Luck Rising" CDR (CA&B are fantastic. It's some of the most miserable and depressing stuff ever recorded. Cauliflower Ass' voice is the sound of complete desperation with lyrics mostly about drinking and falling on hard times. The guitar sounds as if it hasn't been tuned in a good long time, but who has the energy to tune when life is as shitty as this music portrays? Bob's trumpet playing is even more pathetic, like it was lifted straight off a Brainbombs record. The recording itself sounds like it was done in a bathroom. Together it all paints a miserable picture, but one you can't turn away from. This is one of CA&B's better releases, just don't listen to it in the wrong mood.)

COLICO / DEEP FRIED EMBRYO - split CDR (I almost HAD to release this disc. People considered me to be well versed in noisecore and I've released so much of it on my label that it only made sense for me to take on this project with two of the best and most prolific noisecore bands of that time. I think it was Mario from Colico that initiated it, I chose D.F.E. as the other band. Absolutely no progression from either band, just the same noise they've been churning out for their released on the own perspective labels (Meirda En La Cabeza + MMR) Colico's half is made up of 100s of short noise bursts, D.F.E. grinds out 23 sloppy + harsh tracks. I made 100 copies of this thing. It took a while, but I eventually sold all of them.)

D.F.A. - "Destined For Assimilation" CDR (I got this at a Rambo show in Des Moines years ago. Rambo's drummer said they played a show with them a few days earlier and that this demo was the best thing in his distro box. He oversold it for me. I listened to it once when I got home and never had the urge to listen to it again. This is metallic crossover hardcore with group shouts, fast guitars and tight drumming. It sounds like it could have been recorded in the 80s and that's probably why I wasn't into it at the time. That bandana thrash retro thing was all over the place in the early 2000s and I thought it was stupid. I still do, actually, but this isn't nearly as lame as I remembered it being. I don't care what the dude is screaming about, but he sounds pissed. The recording is really good, especially the drums, but it could use a little more bass guitar in the mix. Not bad.)

DIMENTIANON - "Rehearsal Demo 2K2: Advance Songs From Seven Suicides" CDR (First time listening to this, too. Sort of black metal tinged metal with thin production and alternating gruff and Popeye vocals. Needless to say, I'm not into this. I don't even remember how I got this. When I pulled it out of the box I had no recollection of seeing it before.)

DISABUSE / PARKINSON - split CDR (Disabuse are from the Philippines. This recording is a mess. It's good in a good/bad sense. It's totally inept and sounds like those great South American grind bands that are unintentionally noisy. The recording changes for their last few songs, but it's still great for the same reasons listed above. Parkinson are from Malaysia and are a bit tighter than Disabuse. There are both crazy high vocals and weak low grunts, the music is sloppy grind with a lot of punk influence. I imagine I would hate this most of the time, but for some reason this is working for me today.)

EARTH - "Extra-Capsular Extraction" CD (I bought the first three Earth CDs from Hagamoto when he was thinning his collection years ago. This one came in one of those cardboard pocket sleeves. Every other copy I've seen came packaged in a jewel case. It's no "Earth 2", but it's really good. "Ouroboros is Broken" is excellent. It's difficult to imagine a time when this stuff would have been innovative and ground breaking after all the years of shitty bands that came after. Earth made the right move when they abandoned this style and left all the pretenders to feed off it's corpse.)

EGO DEATH / MIXTURIZER - split CDR (When I ripped this to my iPod I found 10 extra covers stuffed inside the sleeve. I guess I was supposed to make my own copies to sell, but that didn't happen. Oops... This is probably my first time listening to this, too, because I'd have remembered this Ego Death stuff. Again, no clue how this noise was made or how to describe it properly, but this stuff rules. Harsh harsh harsh with lots of texture and stereo panning. Mixturizer are less interesting, but still pretty decent. 30 minutes of this stuff is enough, though.)

EMBRYONIC CRYPTOPATHIA / FANTASMI DI SODOMA - split CDR (EC are amazing, completely filthy and brutally fast grindcore with sewage vocals. A lot of their songs are only a few seconds long and the tape stops abruptly chopping them off. Downtuned and scummy stuff with an appropriately thick recording. FDS is an occult themed drum machine noisecore band with several one second stabs of noise over cheesy dirgey synth and horror movie samples. It's funny in the same way Apator and Exmortes are, but not something I'd listen to on my own. On a car ride with someone else to torture them? Sure.)

FACIOUS KHAN - "Bomb in My Gut" CDR (This isn't as good as the "Snowbush Fight" CDR, but it's still really good. Ripping hardcore punk with ridiculous lyrics and a snarling vocal delivery. Food's aggressive vocals are awesome, it's a shame he doesn't use them more often. Nice riffs and guitar sound on this one and still a healthy amount of Greg Ginn-like noise, but the drums aren't as tight as before. It sounds like this might have been put together quickly, but the results are great considering. I love hearing songs skewering Mike Patton. Fuck that guy. This was a lot of fun.)

FACIOUS KHAN / BILLY SICKNESS - split CDR (Take what I wrote above and flip it for this one. The drums are tight and punchy and the guitar sound is thin and strange sounding. The rest is consistent with the above synopsis. Billy Sickness sounds like Food playing all the instruments and Poopy doing the vocals. It's more punk than hardcore. The vocals are pretty good and the music mostly sounds like Fossil Fuel with a better drum machine. Every once in a while there's some stinging guitar leads that made me laugh out loud. This stuff is okay, but Facious Khan were better.)

FATAL ERROR - "The Drinking Sessions '88/'92" CD (My friend Scab sent this to me years ago. This is some really old Dutch grindnoise, a collection of both demos, and unreleased compilation track and a full live set (the highlight of this CD). This is total old school greatness along the lines of Fear of God, demo-era Blood, old Agathocles and Sexorcist: sloppy drums, brutal noisy guitars and really exaggerated vocals. The recording quality varies from one session to the next, but it's all very listenable. I can only assume this their entire discography, but I really don't know for sure. I don't pull this out very often, but I'm always surprised by how great it is when I do.)

FLÄCHENBRAND - "Völkermord" 3" CD (This was the first release of this German HC/powerviolence band, released on R.S.R. with a normal sized CD booklet in a tight poly bag making it difficult to get to the CD inside. I've only listened to this a handful of times because of this. At least one of these dudes was in the band Necrophiliacs. I know the vocalist is the same, but I think there was at least one other guy. It wouldn't surprise me if the drummer was the guy from W.B.I.. Those great ham sandwich vocals are here over more structured, shorter and much faster songs. the guitars sound weird, but the rest of this is brutal. Their cover of S.O.B.'s "Raging in Hell" is almost as fast as Napalm Death's. This shit smokes. I should probably leave it on my iPod so I don't wait another 15 years to listen to it again.)

GHOOM - "Ghoom '94" CDR (Ghoom were a band from my hometown that my friend Mike did after Unisex broke up. I don't really listen to this kind of stuff, so I don't know what to call it exactly, but I'll just call it indie rock or "alternative". Fuck it. Anyway, they recorded one demo, "Mostly", which was released on our in-house make believe label, Jack Mackeral Records. In reality, though, Ghoom financed, released and distributed the whole thing. I don't think I ever sold a copy of it. These songs are catchy and well played, and while the mix is unbalanced (I think it was recorded through a 12 channel mixer live to cassette tape ruling out any mixing), you can easily hear everything. Threeskin played a lot of shows with these guys, so I've heard these songs many times. There are some live songs at the end of this CD (most of which you can hear me cheering on), including many unreleased songs and a covers of the Ventures, Minutemen + Threeskin. Their bass player released this CDR on his Mighty Feeble Lo-Fi label, but I'm sure nobody heard it. I uploaded it on my "This is a Tiny Town" blog if you want to grab it there. It's noteworthy to mention that the guitarist/vocalist, Greg, is currently living in NY and playing in the doom/sludge band Batillus. Don't expect any of that doom to surface here, though.)

GREEN TERROR - "Death and Destruction" CDR (Somehow I befriended their singer on Facebook last year. One day he posted about sending out free CDs to people if they wanted them, so I took him up on it. Apparently he does this often, or at least did at one point. This is pretty good and has a strong 90s feel to it. This must be one of their earlier releases as they've sped things up a lot on their other releases, but this CDR really sounds like Depressor when they added a live drummer. This is heavy and mechanical sounding, lots of samples taken from horror movies and the recording is a little fuzzy, but everything can be made out clearly. This is good, well worth looking into.)

GREEN TERROR - "Heathengrind" CDR (Really short, less than 6 minutes long, but these 4 songs pack a punch. Still really sounds like Depressor, and I love Depressor. I can't tell, but it sounds like a drum machine this time around. Nothing is lost or gained if it is a drum machine. The songs are still heavy and mechanical. The recording is better on this one, too. A lot better.)

GREEN TERROR - "Heathengrind Holocaust" CDR (A lot faster and with a clearer recording this time around. The riffing is more metal making me think there were some line-up changes. There's also more dual vocals than on the above discs. The Impetigo cover was a lot of fun and this was a great listen overall.)

GREEN TERROR - "Heathengrind Warfare" CDR (The entire "Heathengrind" CDR occupies the first part of this disc, then "Death and Destruction" closes it out. That's okay, I didn't mind listening to this stuff twice in a row.)

HERMIT - "Pain Machine" CDR (This was among the first CDRs I ever bought way back in 1997 or so. I haven't listened to it in years and I'm amazed it still plays. I've always liked Hermit. This CD is one 14 minute track. It's kinds mellow, rhythmic and there's some interesting textures going on throughout. It builds up to a noisy finale, but it never goes full-on harsh noise.)

HOLY BONER - "Crunch Crunch Woosh Rattatta Blaaargh" CDR (Nik from Super Fun Happy Slide sent this to me along with their demo. It took some digging to figure out where I got this as there's fuck all information on the cover, but an email from an Aussie sorted it all out. This is a jam room recording (totally blown-out) of really loud and messy noise. 5 songs in 9 minutes, the first being the longest and most structured. It starts out really sludgy, then things dissolve into almost total noise from there on out, just blasting, feedback and screaming. Needless to say, I fucking loved it.)

HONKY TONK OVERLORDS - "Sci-Fi Fish Fry" CDR (HTO was a short-lived project I was involved with for a few months. All three members on this recording were in C3L, and in all honesty, this should have been released as a C3L recording as it would have gotten more exposure if so, but this was Spence's baby and he wrote most of the songs and structures. Brian got involved because he and Spence lived in the same house, so it made sense. They asked me to play guitar and I agreed. If I remember correctly, I was unhappy with my overdrive sound, so one day I decided to play clean and with reverb and it changed our sound completely. After that I started writing surfier guitar parts instead of just following the bass and the style changed even more. This was the only recording we did, done on 4 tracks, and it sounds terrible. I recorded the entire drum set on one track, bass and guitar on another leaving the other two tracks open for overdubs. I think Spence had originally planned on doing vocals over this, but ultimately decided to just record a bunch of noise instead. The noises came courtesy of a Boss DR-5 drum machine and an reverb-delay pedal I had. If you dialed back the rate as a loop was going you could create this great noise like a spaceship zooming by  at warp speed. The drum machine noises were done by our friend John, no clue how he created them. After the recording was done we continued playing for a while, but Brian started missing rehearsals and Spence wanted to play shows, so we kicked Brian out and replaced him with Tom (from local doom/drone band Scat). The songs didn't work too well live without the noises, so I started playing with distortion again and we sped the songs up a bunch. We made some copies of the demo to sell at shows, but since Tom was the current drummer, he was pictured on the back cover. Brian's always been pissed about that, even to this day. We just talked about it at a show a couple of months ago. Whenever he brings up this recording he refers to it as "that stuff we did with Spence" and it takes me a while to figure out what he's talking about. I don't remember how many of these were made because we made them as we needed them, but I can't imagine it was more than 50. I think we played live 4 times. Tom eventually became unreliable, too, then things eventually just fell apart. Often I forget about this band even existing.)

HOT L.Z. - "How Do You Live Like That?" CDR (More tough stuff from the Wheelchair crew. This one is detuned and dirgey, sloppy and barely structured, but I'm enjoying it in spite of (because of?) those qualities. It sounds as if this was mostly improvised and vocals were added later. Food's vocals are great on this, really angry and harsh. If this was either shorter or better rehearsed it would probably be really good. I suppose that's missing the whole point, though.)

IMPETIGO - "All We Need is Cheez" CD (This is a CD reissue of their first demo, recorded live in 1987 if I remember correctly. It's a soundboard recording and it sounds pretty good. A lot of these songs are more HC sounding, less serious. I actually like these goofy songs more than what came later, they remind me of Stikky. Stevo's stage banter is awesome, sometimes funny, sometimes abusive. I have a bunch of their old shows on VHS from this era that I got from their guitarist, Mark, with similar abusive remarks hurled at the apathetic audience. As a citizen of Iowa, I can relate. This is a fun release, reminds me of my late teenage years. Weird hearing a Skafish cover on here.)

INHUMATE - "Ex-Pulsion" CD (I used to get death metal promos all the time when I did Mortville. I'd accept them, send something back in trade and we'd spread each other's flyers around. Inhumate sent me two of their promo CDs and I wasn't into either of them at the time. In fact, with the exception of Krabathor that whole late 90s death metal scene didn't appeal to me at all. Listening to this again today for the first time in over a decade I'm still not into it. It certainly seems well played and the vocals are brutal, but I'm not enjoying it.)

INHUMATE - "Growth" CD (Growth? Not really. This sounds about the same as the above CD.)

THE KILL - "Demo" CDR (This is the CDR version of the demo tape, limited to 100 copies. Most of these songs were released on their split 7" with Retaliation, too. If I remember correctly, this CDR happened because I took to long to get the 7" out and they were eager for people to hear this material. It didn't effect sales of the 7" any. It sold out quicker than most of my releases. I had the opportunity to sit in on one of their rehearsals before this was recorded and knew right away I wanted to release something of theirs. This is still my favorite The Kill recording and Neil was the best vocalist they had. His vocals fit perfectly with the hyper-fast blasting grindcore they were doing. The tinny recording works perfectly, too. Love this shit.)

KITA - s/t CDR (Mid-90s stoner rock from Iowa City with songs about cars, sluts, drinking and drugs. There was a period where they seemed to open for every single band I saw at Gabe's Oasis. Musically they're fairly one dimensional. The songs all hinge on the one riff repeated for 5 minutes or so. The vocals sound okay when he has a lot of words to sing, but on the slower songs there's a tendency to draaaag oooout aaaaalll the words on the vowel sound. I don't know any of these guys, but from what I've heard from other people, they're the real deal. Their songs aren't fantasies put to music. If this stuff sounds sleazy and dirty, it's likely they're singing from experience. For me, that's equally impressive and off-putting. When you remove that tongue from the cheek it becomes a whole lot less fun, and when you're not really into this style of music in the first place you're not left with much. The recording, however, is awesome, especially the thick fuzzy bass that carries most of this. If you're into Cavity, Eyehategod and Buzz'oven, you'd probably dig this. I'm not really into any of those bands, either.)

LABRADFORD - "Mi Media Naranja" CD* (Man, this CD is great. Totally mellow and soothing with lush guitars, simple drum accompaniment, rolling organ sounds and minimal piano. Again, it's the lack of those silly post-rock dynamics that makes this a stand out in that genre. Everything creeps along at a steady pace perfectly. This reminds me of some of Vangelis' earlier stuff and of Eno's excellent ambient albums. It's a bummer about the vocals on here, but they're infrequent enough to forgive.)

LABRADFORD - "Prazision" CD* (This one starts out with a long dark ambient piece, then moves into similarly dark post-rock stuff and returns to more noisy dark stuff throughout. There's more vocals on this than on their other albums, but they're all mumbled and really low in the mix. Occasionally things cheer up a bit, but it goes right back into more sombre sounds. This CD is great, but way different from the above disc. I appreciate this kind of range from a band.)

LASSE MARHAUG - "Science Fiction Room Service" CD (Reeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Skrshrrrrrrrrrr!!! Xxxxxxshrhkkks!!! Bdrpbdrpbdrpbdrp!!! Wrrrrghrrrsh!!!  for 62 solid minutes.)

LEBPROSIAKA - "6 Song Promo" CDR (Seb from Antigama sent this to me years ago, said it was a "punk" band he was playing with on the side. I guess this might be "punk" in comparison to Antigama, but there are a lot of grindcore bands that strive to be this heavy and come up short. Most of this is thick and crusty with super heavy guitars and pitch-shifted vocals that sound like the first Haemorrhage album. I can't tell if they're using a drum machine or a live drummer. The drum sounds are totally realistic, but they're stiff and mechanical. This is pretty good, but I don't remember hearing anything more about this band after this promo.)

LETTUCE VULTURES - "Egregious" CDR (Lettuce Vultures are great. I like Food's work the most when he works in aggressive styles of music. While the recording on this CDR sounds fairly wimpy and the drum machine isn't anywhere near as tough as "the punk drum beat maker", these are really good punk/HC songs. Played by anyone else this stuff would be tough as fuck, but the strange recording and vocal delivery makes this unique. I'd like a little more snarl on the vocals, but this works for me.)

MACHETAZO / ABSCESS - split MCD (I had copies of this for sale once and forgot to keep a copy for myself. I was happy to find a copy years later in someone's sale list online. Machetazo are great. Sure, I like their old demo material better, but they do a decent job of capturing that old death metal feeling with these tracks. The drumming is way fast on here and the guitars are filthy sounding. The high vocals are a little irritating, but the lows sound great, especially on the blast parts. Their last is a mid-paced song that crushes. Abscess are hit and miss for me. Most of the time I just want them to sound more like Autopsy, and there are too few moments on these tracks that do. Those guitar solos however? Fuck.... So damned good. The production is good, but some more bass would have been nice.)

MASSICK - "Discography" CD  (These German grinders are all over the place with adding different genres to their music. It's not unlike Le Scrawl's approach, but instead of clean breaks into different kinds of music, the genre changes sometimes take over entire songs. There's some straight-up grindcore, crust, pop punk, jazz, ska, funk and indie rock thrown into the mix. Somehow it all works, and I usually hate this kind of stuff. It reminds me of Mexican Power Authority, who I love.)

NETJAJEV SOCIETY SYSTEM - "New Tracks 2004" CDR (Magnus sent this to me as a promo, I assume because he was looking for a label. I had too much on my plate at the time, else I would have jumped on it. 12 songs on here, all of the scuzzy fast variety channeling Rupture. I don't remember which releases these songs ended up on, but this stuff rages. The recording is a little thin on the second half, but the songs are solid. The cover is a folded up piece of black construction paper with a sticker on it. I wonder if it's worth anything?)

NIHILIST COMMANDO - "Demo 2002" CDR (NC were a breath of fresh air for the noisecore scene when they came around. A lot noisecore shit was getting stupid and sloppier, all jokey. Nihilist Commando came along and made it all sound dangerous and serious again by playing furious, stripped down blasts of angry noise. This wasn't a throwback as Mikko's been doing this stuff since it's heyday. Instead, this plays as a complete rejection of all of the innovation that's happened over the years. This is completely stripped of humor and completely fucking angry.)

NIHILIST COMMANDO - "Demo 2005" CDR (Same scenario as above, only longer in duration and with shorter songs. An unrelenting barrage of hate and noise.)

THE POOPS - "Sandwich Cake Glob" CDR (The Poops are like the Special Olympics version of Renaldo & the Loaf and "Commercial Album" era Residents. I want to like this, but it's just so damn stupid. I will say that the longer this plays the more I seem to like it, but I've got a long way to go. Some of the percussion tracks are really inventive, so points are awarded for that alone. 73 minutes of this stuff is excruciating.)

SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM / THIS VIOLENT WORLD - "Deathgrind Massacre" CDR (I'm pretty sure these were both pre-Green Terror projects. Shock to the System play solid mid-paced death metal with some "chugga-chugga" riffs and breakdowns that happen often enough to wear out their welcome, but there are some decent riffs, great recording, etc. It's a little silly, but most death metal is. This Violent World has more of that mechanical Depressor sound that Green Terror has. It's definitely a step in the right direction.)

SLOTH - "It's Not Our Worst AKA Progress?" CD (This might have been my introduction to Sloth. I listened to this thing all the time when I got it and it was still in heavy rotation for years after that. This is a compilation of songs from their earliest releases with a couple of unreleased tracks mixed in. Wonderfully sludgy stuff, well written with interesting vocals, great sound quality and great use of dynamics. This is excellent, though I would have liked a little more info in the scant one panel insert. Listening to this now makes me hate their new shit even more. If they still sounded like this I'd still be going crazy trying to pick up every release.)

SNOWY PLOVER - "The Best of Snowy Plover" CDR1 (I got this from Dave of Wuzor and Funeral Shock fame. This was one of his bands before Wuzor. This doesn't sound too different from Wuzor, actually, only recorded a lot worse. These songs are a mixture of sludge/doom and rock, in the same way the Melvins blend the two. Some of the ideas are more developed than others, but it all works and there's lots of overdubbed noises and samples throughout. The recording sounds like it was done on a 4 track, but it often sounds sort of distant. The slower, sludgier songs are crushing and sound like old Sloth. I used to listen to this a lot when I first got it, but it's been several years since I've heard it. I really enjoyed it today. I haven't heard from Dave in years. I wonder what he's up to today?)

SNOWY PLOVER - "The Best of Snowy Plover" CDR2 (This is pretty similar to the first disc. I probably could have written about them both in the same entry. The recordings on this disc are worse than on the first. A lot of it sounds like it was recorded live and the sound is completely blown-out on some of the songs. The songs themselves are still really good, though.)

SOCKEYE / PUNKU BOI - split CDR (This was released by Lost Frog in Japan, limited to 100 copies and was difficult to track down. Recorded right at the tail end of Sockeye's run when their music had dissolved into almost total noise and the lyrics seem to have been made up on the spot. This is my favorite era, totally stupid, like a group of drunk friends fucking around having fun. A couple of these songs are really good, but all of them are fun. Punku Boi are really, really fucking noisy. It's probably just two people (maybe just one) as you never hear more than one instrument and vocals at a time. The first track is drums, screamed vocals and loads of feedback. The rest are just bass guitar and screamed vocals, screamed so high and loud that this actually gave me a headache. This is a single mic recording with loads of treble, completely harsh. Fuck...)

SPACEBOX - s/t CD (Guru Guru went to shit after Uli Trepte left. Great bass players leave holes that can't be filled. Average bass players are interchangeable. I never appreciated just how much he contributed to Guru Guru's sound until I heard this CD. This sounds more like Guru Guru than their albums that came after Trepte's departure. This is really jazzy, really experimental and progressive. I suspect this would be difficult listening for a lot of people as it's all over the place and his strong Teutonic vocals seem just to be spoken at random over everything. I love this, though. The CD came housed in a cardboard box with the name stamped on the front. I have the second album on vinyl, but I haven't listened to it in years. I need to dig it out again.)

VIOLENT HEADACHE - "Rare Sessions 1991-97" CDR (Toñyo sent me a copy of this a couple of years ago. His brother released it on his Face of Belmez label and nobody got a copy. I bugged Toñyo until he was able to get me a copy, then offered to re-release it on Mortville. The indexing and volume levels were a mess on the original. I straightened all of that out and trimmed the blank space from between the songs for the re-release. This is my favorite era of their music and these recordings are great. Still really noisy, but lots of great grind and crust parts. I made 100 of these and still have a bunch of them. People don't know what they're missing.)

WASTEOID - "Peeing Out the Butt " Tour CDR (This is really early stuff for these guys, definitely before their LP. Everything was in place from the beginning. Short, fast, manic and silly songs with no real breakdowns to be found. Decent recording, nice release all around. It took me almost as long to type this as it did to listen to it. Cramming 9 proper tracks into less than 5 minutes is the way this shit's supposed to be done. Good show.)

v/a - "Those Were Different Times" CD (This is a cool document of the early Cleveland punk scene from 1972-1976. The three bands on here all sound drastically different, but they sound fine together on this CD released by the great Scat Records in Ohio. The liner notes say they shared members and sometimes songs. Mirrors are first on here with some great garage rock stuff. Some of their songs would sound right at home on the Nuggets box set. Raw guitars, sung vocals, plinky sounding keyboards and a strong sense of melody. The recordings are mostly good, especially so considering the conditions in which they were recorded. There's a great cover of Rocket From the Tombs' "Frustration" with theremin instead of vocals. Their songs are strong, but they're my least favorite band on here. I picked this up for the Electric Eels songs, and they're my favorite songs on here. I have a 2LP collection of EE stuff that's great, and because this CD contained exclusive material from all three bands I had to pick it up. The Electric Eels were one of the snottiest bands ever and one of the earliest examples of punk rock. Totally raw, unrestrained punk rock from sketchy dudes making it up as they went. The first songs on here with drums are blasts of energy, then shit gets weird after that. "Now" is a weird, go nowhere song that sounds like they were just making noise. "You Crummy Fags" is an anthem if there ever was one. With drums it would have been one of the greatest and most covered punk tunes ever. Their set closes out with some great live stuff. The audience's laughter is one of my favorite things about this CD. The Styrenes are last and their chunk starts out with a track of electronic noise generated by Styrene-o-Phones (broken fuzz pedals rewired as noise makers). These noises make an appearance between most of the songs, actually, and they sound especially strange in contrast to the more folk-sounding songs on here like "Mr. Crab". There's some  krautrock-ish electronics stuff on here that was probably pretty groundbreaking here in the states. All of The Styrenes stuff is strange and the songs all sound different. I think I read somewhere that their drummer later joined The Cramps, but you won't here any of that here. This is a great CD. I'm glad I picked up a copy of it before it went out of print.)