A deeper look at the grooves pressed into NastyFacts’ Limited Edition “Drive My Car” 12” single. As every punk knows, it’s not terribly uncommon for many bands of a certain vintage to have a pretty abbreviated catalogue of releases. The idea of “one and done” isn’t uncommon at all, really – but it’s still saying something when a band’s total output was limited to ONE SINGLE before they closed up shop. That’s not small, that’s infinitesimal – so of course...
POST-GENRE MUSIC My favorite album of the past year or so is Emily Wells’ Regards to the End. It is beautiful, emotionally powerful and transcendent, even; and it is unclassifiable. It is not really rock, or pop, or electronica, or hip-hop, although it contains elements of all. It’s not classical, or jazz, or soul. The best qualifier is simply to call this album Music, with a capital M. Pure music. Then take Nels Cline, one of the most innovative guitarists...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Slackers’ “New York Berlin” b/w “Tell Them No” 12” one-sided single. I confess that, while the two songs which comprise the new Slackers single are good, solid cuts, I do not understand why this single has been pressed the way it has. First, both “New York Berlin” and “Tell Them No” are perfectly average songs in length – one is almost three and a half minutes long and the other is...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Great Confrontation 2LP by Chip Kinman. I confess that I had forgotten about The Dils until the opportunity to review the band’s Live! reissue came up. Not that I was unfamiliar with the band before (I remember discovering the band at the same time I came upon The Weirdos, The Bags, The Dickies and Fear in high school), they just sort of escaped my memory until the band’s Live! album got...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Dumb & In Luv LP by Suzi Moon. After having released two EPs in the last sixteen months, it’s unlikely that fans expected a full-length album to be forthcoming from Suzi Moon – but the even greater surprise is just how incredibly good Dumb & In Luv is. Where the EPs hinted at some solid gutter-rock power, Dumb & In Luv goes a couple of steps further and reveals Moon’s potential...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the LP+CD reissue of Live! by The Dils. While plenty of punk bands have been well exposed since the public became interested in learning about the early days of the L.A. punk scene (X’s catalogue has been reissued by Fat Possum Records, Porterhouse reissued (MIA) by The Germs and other labels have reissued titles by The Avengers, The Bags and The Runaways too), the truth is that giving all of the talent...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Lunatics EP by The Drowns. It would be easy enough to curse The Drowns out for what the band has done with the Lunatics EP. Not unlike what innumerable other acts have done, over the years (Hot Water Music, NOFX and John Lennon all leap to mind), The Drowns have elected to take a moment that they’re capable of stretching out from their musical comfort zone (which has tended to stay...
Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)by Dan Ozzi Punk rock has come full circle. It started with a feeding frenzy from the major labels wanting to cash in on the movement/music in the 70s (remember, the Clash were on CBS Records and the Ramones on Sire, which is technically Warner Brothers), then became reviled by the mainstream, and now it’s back on the yacht (comfortably solidifying its place as hackneyed when the Met Gala...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the reissue of The Lorrainas’ Party ‘Til It’s Dark LP. Sure, this vinyl reissue of Party ‘Til It’s Dark – The Lorrainas’ first and only full-length studio album – may seek to re-introduce material which is now seventeen years old, but anyone who hears it will excitedly admit that the music sounds one hundred per cent fresh; after the rush of endorphins which come with the music initially begin to fade. The...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the You’re Class, I’m Trash LP by The Monsters. Arguably the greatest compliment one can pay to a punk record is not to call it “good” or “great” or anything like that (because such terms can be – and have been – dismissed as a matter of opinion or as a matter of perception), but to simply exclaim, “You’ve gotta hear this” to as many potentially receptive ears as possible. Word tends...