Unbroken Owns Your Soul

Like all good things, they come to an end.

This was the end of Unbroken. I was able to see the first "last" Unbroken show that year and damn it, it was a memorable experience. One of the top show experiences of my life. I have a few very choice photos that I must find... One of kids going nuts with Dave wearing an awesome Undertow shirt and a very cool shot of Eric Allen rocking the hell out of kids at the Tune Inn in New Haven.

Anyway, things are busy here still. I think sometime in the middle of October I can resume posting in a somewhat normal fashion. For next I have three awesome things to show you guys. Black Kites, Damezumari and another blast from the past. Lets see if I can actually pull it off.. I want to give the first two the proper credit as they are active and touring bands with great styles...

That is all.


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Psych.


Someone mentioned Fall on Proverb and since its such a fucking awesome 7" here you go. Going away for the weekend. Will talk to you all on sunday or monday. I think we should all meet up in Chicago for the reunion show to end all reunion shows. I know reunion shows smack of velveeta cheesiness, but seriously... does this line up sound anything less than bad ass?

Disembodied
Unbroken
Undertow
Mouthpiece
Coalesce
108
Trial

I didnt think so. Does anyone else think Outspoken should play this show? Lets all write to them and threaten them with bodily harm if they do not play this show. Of course Im kidding... about the bodily harm part.

Hey, heres Fall on Proverb! Tear shit up! Wow, that was a Vogelism...

Los Crudos

Its Friday. Fuck you.

CRUDO SOY!



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Yeah, everyone already has these. So whats my point? I strongly urge you to listen to them Right. This. Second.

Seriously.

Here. Fuck it. Go fuckin nuts. Dont say I didnt say "I told you so"

Fabric 7"

I cant remember how I found this again, but it was originally released on Doghouse records. I bought it simply because of that reason. After all, Endpoint was on Doghouse and they pretty much ruled. (See Prediction-Error-Signal for a good Endpoint post). As it turns out this was a pretty good blind purchase.

Fabric were a UK band with a heavy post-hardcore sound. Theres only two songs here, but both are 5+ minutes and there are a good number of ideas presented in each song. They come off as a mix of maybe Sparkmarker, Swiz and every once in a while the vocals remind me of Bobby Sullivan from Soul Side. Its a tough call to make, so you decide. They are both good songs with some pretty good production quality, so if you turn it up loud its sure to make you get psyched.

They had a CD as well, and while its not bad it doesnt really stand up to these two songs. I am waiting for some Another Wall stuff to arrive here, and would love to put that up. So keep your fingers crossed that I can get it next week.

Here are some pictures I took of stuff on the streets of the LES. I always find this stuff fascinating. Torn up forgotten pieces of art that look 20 times better than any single of these artists probably intended.

Hope everyone is well. Click and view to make these bigger if you like that sort of shit.

Minutemen - History Lesson Pt II - Acoustic

This song has always pulled the heartstrings. This video of this song brings a tear to my eye. The Minutemen stood for so much goodness in this world. I wonder if there will ever be another band like them. Irreverent, funny, touching, scathing, surreal and humanitarian.

Enjoy this video. Make sure to see We Jam Econo.. you can Netflix it or buy it and see all the extras it comes with. Fully worth it either way. Use Google to search for it. Read Our Band Could Be Your Life too. Google that also.

Things be mad busy over my way. More posting in the future.

Bad Brains - Live @ CBGB 1982

I bet a lot of you have seen this footage before but its Friday and I was listening to Bad Brains this morning on the subway and when Supertouch / Shitfit came on I got excited, knowing full well that it has one of the best hardcore breakdowns ever. This in turn reminded me of the DVD which is amazing. It is footage from 3 shows around X-mas time in 1982.

The part in particular that I thought of is naturally the breakdown. Around 1:50 in, during the second breakdown, watch the kid on stage do this mega stomp. It is hilarious and awesome, and I can totally feel the energy that he is getting off the song. I wish you could see his face better while he stomps across the stage. He has the ultimate look of ecstasy and fury, presented in a grimace of epic proportion. Dr Know looks cooler than anyone on the planet and HR is in his best form. The rest of the video is astonishingly awesome with a ton of great crowd shots of people going off. It's been a long time since I've been to a show where people go off that much, and even then, I think anything from early CBGB years trumps the most insane of the shows I've been too.

Well, I wanted to just post Supertouch but I couldnt find that on you tube so you get this instead, which is part 2 of 5 segments on youtube. You can go check those out, but the quality isnt that great, so if you have the notion, I would suggest searching out this DVD as its a wholly worthy way to spend an hour.

Click the cover to head to Amazon if you care to purchase this awesome snapshot of one of the best hardcore bands to ever exist. Its only $14.99, so your guaranteed to get your moneys worth.



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Also, Chino Hordes song 'Arson' is one of the finest punk songs ever written... Can I get a "Hell Yes!"

Cornerstone - Beating the Masses (1995)

Okay, back to music for punching faces...

haha! In case you didnt know, I dont support actual face punching. Unless its consensual, of course. Frankly it hurts to punch someone face, so go for the gut if you feel the need to throw a punch. Now kickboxing, that is something I can get behind. Especially when its the Connecticut Crucial Kickbox as played by youth crew revivalists Cornerstone.

Cornerstone, or xCORNERSTONEx, as they were lovingly labeled, were a straight edge hardcore band from, yep, you guessed it, Connecticut. They played a great rendition of thrashy old school hardcore that wouldnt have been out of place in NYC in 1985. I am no youth crew fanatic. I am happy to stick with what I know when it comes to that scene, and that tends towards stuff released in the hey day of that style, but Cornerstone were somewhere near omnipresent in the CT hardcore scene. Being that I spent a decent amount of time at the Tune Inn in lovely New Haven I was able to see these guys open for a number of bands.

The first thing that struck me about these guys was that besides the singer, who liked wearing Champion sweatshirts ala Gorilla Biscuits, all the band members were younger than me. I was 17 at the time, so the band members mustve been around 14. Nonetheless, they played an infectious variety of hardcore that my ears were keen to. Like other youth crew style bands in the 90's, people slagged them for ripping the styles of so many bands the late 80's...even though those 80's bands were ripping the Cro Mags and Agnostic Front, somehow people miss the point that nothing is original... its only the conviction with which you play that sets you apart from all the other copycats. With that said, the key to Cornerstone's success, in my eyes, was that their songs were very short. A style like youth crew doesnt need to be much more than a minute long... 2 minutes tops or I am getting bored. So this 9 song, 14 minute recording benefits greatly from that aesthetic.

Add to all of this an awesome and crucial cover by Ernie from Token Entry / Black Train Jack and you have a great reminder of what makes hardcore great. At least in terms of aesthetics. When it comes to values I am happy to say that Cornerstone is also what you expect. Positivity, unity and sticking it to the man, the haters and the fakers. The lyrics are sung (screamed) in an intelligible way so you can be guaranteed to know all the lyrics while you kickbox with your friends.

Members went on to form Fastbreak around the same time as Cornerstone and they were pretty decent and I am sure many of you have heard of them by now.

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I promised a post about the term "Punk". As cliche as it is, I still intend to do this. I got much busier this weekend than I had thought and work is picking up these days, so if you dont see me making many new posts, you can be rest assured that I havent given up, just tending to other business.

Hope everyone is good.

Tim / blend77

Portraits of Past - Live @ Cake Shop NYC

I went and saw Portraits of Past this saturday. It was EPIC.

When I got there I was almost as excited to see Off Minor and Ampere play. Especially Off Minor as I had never seen them and was told they were great live. So to begin, the Cake Shop is very small. And it was very crowded. Very.

So Off MInor played, and while I enjoyed listening to their set, I was a little bummed that a lot of the people in the front just kind of stood around. I mean, if youve listened to Off Minor than you know that they have a pretty explosive quality. I expected the place to erupt in flying bodies. This was not the case and it was somewhat to my dismay. Nonetheless, they played adequately and Jaime did all the straight arms and good ole hardcore guitar maneuvers that you would hope for. I just couldnt really see them that well so all in all it was good, but not much better than listening to their records.

Ampere was next. I saw Ampere play with Daitro last year and that was a great show. People were into and plenty of people were moving. As was the case with Off Minor, no one moved. I barely even saw people moving their heads. Again I was slightly disappointed. Of course Ampere sounded great, but since I had the same spot I couldnt really see them going off and since no one was moving there was a general air of "lets just get this over with because I am hot as fuck right now and I could be home listening to my records and having more fun". It confounds me that people dont physically react to this kind of music more. Maybe it is because Off Minor and Ampere play technically complex songs and its harder to find a groove to lock into. As a side note, it occurred to me that Ampere and Off Minor would have been very likely candidates for a split recording. I am not sure why this hasnt happened and as of now I am not sure it will. Rumors abound of Off Minors imminent end. When I asked Jaime who was selling their records he repiled "No one!" and laughed and then added, "The real question is: Who is buying our record? NO ONE!!! HAHAHAH!!!". I simply said, "Well, I want to buy one if you can have someone sell it to me and he kind of was like, "Oh... okay... cool."

So by the time Portraits of Past were coming on, I was getting to the point where I was antsy for this to be over. Not that it was a bad time, but, well, read above... Last year I saw Lifetime and Brainworms on two separate occasions and they were both bonkers. People going off! Thats what I like about going to hardcore shows. The kinetic energy and the way it affects the band... It becomes a cycle. A closed circuit loop where the band electrifies the audience and the audience in turn electrifies the band. I think I will go on record right now and say that if I am going to any punk or hardcore show that I expect that to be the way its going to be. I want action and craziness. I want a time I can remember. Not just a hotter, louder more crowded version of me listening to records in the comfort of my own home. If you disagree, then why are you into this kind of music.

Portraits of Past made good on this ideal. And not only PoP, but the crowd made good on this deal. People went off. It was great and affirming. Just when I thought I was bored enough to leave, PoP and the crowd came through in spades. Man it was hot. Very good time. They closed with Journeyman which was what I was hoping for. I beat my chest very hard. I sweated about 5 lbs of liquid out of my body. I went home emaciated and glowing. I can only hope for more shows like this.

These are some pics from Damian. They are not from the cake shop. They are from the SF shows and the Death By Audio show in Brooklyn. One thing I will say is the Cake Shop is too small to be that crowded and I have yet to see any good photos from that show. If you know of any, or if you took any that look great, send em through and I will post them here. These shots are pretty freaking cool though, and I think you can get the idea.