fIREHOSE - Ragin' Full On

...because it just feels right about now.

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Die Kreuzen - Die Kreuzen

One of my top five hardcore releases. This record scared the crap out of me the first time I ever heard it. Still today it's an excellent example of a genre, and features some of the tightest performances of said style. Vicious and fast and surgical.

Sadly, like a lot of hardcore acts they slowed it down, grew the hair, started smoking pot etc etc etc and proceeded to lose a ton of intensity. But this record is just a glistening gem - a terrific artifact representative of discliplined hardcore displaying the groundedness and work ethic of us wholesome, unassuming Midwesterners.

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Various Artists - Strictly Rub-A-Dub, 20 Killa Dancehall Classics

This town is too hot!

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Scott Walker - Scott 4

And one more before I have to get reading.

Just watched Scott Walker: 30th Century Man on Netflix.


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The Gaylads - Over The Rainbow's End

This has been in the pocket getting nice and sweaty and ready for distribution for a few months.

Yes I do want to take this serious & beautiful rock steady artifact behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

I'm not afraid to say it ~ I'm totally into Gaylads!


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The Raincoats - Odyshape

One of the favorites. Was somehow reminded to put it up here after the spouse/girlbaby/I was introduced to Emily Roysdon in a hotel pool by a good friend.

I submit this in homage of spouse & girlbaby.

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ps - Trivia: Robert Wyatt played drums on And Then It's OK

King Tubby & The Upsetter - At The Grass Root of Dub

We summer vacating all over the place here as evidenced by the sporadic loading. But now the heat is on and maybe more time spent away from under the hotthotthott inclement.

When we say the King, we mean Tubby... not that fat, greasy racist with the wiggly leg.

Here The King With The Upsetter = Da kine

I rey! The higher the monkey climbs the more him expose.


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Pavement - All the EPs

Pavement - some gems. Piss on the rereleases. Taudry/Shameless/Useless.

Here's some fun. All their EPs.

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Halo Benders - God Don't Make No Junk

This is dedicated to that person who missed their Air France flight. The flight that crashed leaving Brazil. This woman was later killed in a car accident.

Truth > Fiction


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Homestead Sampler (VA) - Human Music [1988]

This one will transport some of the elderly members of the Forest to back in the day. Homestead Records: circa 1988ish.

I've always marveled at how this compilation attacks from so many different angles but somehow retains an air of curatorial cohesion. Sure, it's as uneven in spots as any comp (that Happy Flowers song is a little rough to endure), but overall this stands on its own more successfully than most.

Check the roster for this talent show, tho. The Forest already features something from at least 7 of these artists, so if you hear something you like, look to the list on the right—more may be right there.

Human Music contains primarily previously unreleased tracks and features extensive non-sequitur liner notes that some kind soul has scanned and posted here. The type is a little small, but as Gene Simmons says—if it's too difficult to read the liner notes, you are too old.

This has to be one of the better label comps of past years; I'm wondering if the denizens can suggest any others of fond remembrance? I have some I can dust off, but I fear the returns diminish after this one.

(Note: this is the 22 track CD version. I'm not cool enough to own the 25 track double LP version, which adds My Dad is Dead - Time Has Come Today, Membranes - Wounded Bull in Victorian England, and last but least, GG Allin - I'm a Gipsy Motherfucker.)


Score your cushion on the moldy porch couch. Grab me a Rhinelander before you sit down. Sure, you can have one.

Jesus Lizard - Live, All Tomorrow's Parties, May 9, 2009

Jesus returns, courtesy of Chunklet.

All Tomorrow's Party/Reunion/May 2009

Now you can all return to sniffing my taint.



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Deep Wound - S/T EP

To weave back to the Sebadoh outtakes I'll throw this on this burner.

I did and occasionally still do listen to a lot of hardcore. Deep Wound was a very late discovery (after You're Living All Over Me), and is widely considered in my head to be one of the most obviously talented and underheard HC groups.... Of course I can't be entirely objective knowing what their future would become.

See for yourself. These aren't just some suburban aggro dweebs.

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AMG: The mountains of western Massachusetts are still reverberating with the cavernous sounds created by hardcore band Deep Wound in the early '80s. Formed by Westfield, MA, high school friends Scott Helland and Lou Barlow in 1981, the band came together quickly. Acquiring a drummer, J Mascis, who answered an ad for someone to play "super fast beats," and a vocalist, Charlie Nakajima, they released an EP in the summer of 1983.

Their efforts proved fruitless, however. Although they placed two tracks, "A Time to Stand" and "You're False," on a 1984 compilation, Bands That Could Be God, their frustration to spark much commercial interest led them to disband shortly afterwards.

In the aftermath of Deep Wound's breakup, bandmembers remained active. Mascis formed late-'80s band Dinosaur Jr. and later, with Nakajima, Gobblehoof. Helland went on to play with the Outpatients from 1982 until 1995.



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Negative Approach - Total Recall

Tried to listen to Mastodon tonight and only wanted to hear Negative Approach and Septic Death instead.

Stop me before I post more hardcore.

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AMG: Detroit's Negative Approach, along with Maumee, OH's Necros, were the undisputed champs of Midwestern hardcore in the early to mid-'80s. Legend has it that vocalist John Brannon recruited drummer OP Moore and the guitar/bass team of Rob and Graham McCulloch at a skate park sometime in 1981. Lead by the bald-headed Brannon's hoarse wail, the band concocted an extreme sound devoid of frills that alternated between violent and mean. This was first fully documented in 1982 on their self-titled Touch and Go 7". The band released the more metallic-sounding Tied Down 12" on Touch and Go in 1983, but died out in 1985 as Brannon incubated the Birthday Party blues of Laughing Hyenas. Unfortunately lacking the more widespread post-hardcore fame of peers Ian McKaye and Henry Rollins, Brannon's Negative Approach has not gotten the later-day due often accorded Minor Threat and Black Flag. Negative Approach was certainly as influential as those two bands, touching everyone from Poison Idea to Sonic Youth to Los Crudos, as well as entire generations of hardcore fans in Boston and New York. The band was also as original and extreme as any early-'80s punk outfit -- the rhythmic crush created by Moore and the McCulloch brothers continues to be an undeniable steel-toe to the face. Touch and Go compiled the band's discography as Total Recall in 1992, an essential listen for anyone who wants to understand hardcore.


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Sebadoh - Wade through the Boggs

Wade Boggs ate chicken before every game.

This Sebadoh lineup broke up every other Saturday night.

We all have superstitions.

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Tracks

Happily Divided / Healthy Sick / Messin' Around / Cheapshot / Let the Day Have Its Way / Mean Distance / Spoiled / Not My Friend / MEE-YOW / Smaller Yard / All That I Could / Broken Love / Cry Sis / Limb by Limb / Indeed You Are / Wake and Bake / Visibly Wasted / Wade Through the Boggs / Katina's / Chicken Walk / Sebadough!

Notes

A compilation of unreleased tracks from 1989-1993. Limited to 1,000 copies. Sold during the 2007 tour and then through Eric's website.

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