A-Team Crucial Christmas #2

The amount of neglect this band receives is nothing short of criminal.

Crucial Christmas

I know it's not Christmas Eve yet, but I just couldn't resist.

The A-Team: "Christmas Claws." Forever in our hearts. 
The A-Team were a short lived hardcore band out of Boston MA. They released two 7" EPs "Sewer Rats" & "Clusterfuck", a split 7" EP with R'N'R and an album on Stab & Kill Records entitled "A is for Asshole". They were equally loved and hated it seems. -Stolen from the internet

Crucial Yule (Inky Fanzine Nugget #4)

Straight Outta Christmas

Christmas and Hardcore collabo by a dear friend of mine. He's got some left over. Get at him if you want in on that action. (Jeffreelee@yahoo.com)

Teen Baldness (Core Core Core #6)

Heard the trial has been adjourned. D'oh.

Written Off Shirts (Art Dork #1)

Wacky Collage

So, some of my shirt designs are available again on the Written Off Bigcartel (and from what I'm told, the SFU webstore will have 'em too).  Buy one if you want. It's cool. 

Word on the Street - "Streets is Watching + Demo" (Demo Dogz #7)

Lizard King

This ain't exactly new, but I've been told that it was recently dubbed onto a tape along with the demo, made available for those lucky ducks who went to Not Dead Yet. Also this band's from Halifax. I don't know anything about that area except it's cold in the winter time (right?)

Looking at the cover probably psyches a lot of people out. Genndy Tartakovsky-esque monster thugs posing hard in an alley. I was duped into thinking this would be bad Third Tier LOC worship, because of the serious Risky Biz vibe, but this honestly sounds like Straight Ahead's Breakaway 12" melting (or being played at 33 RPM). Rev era Sick Of It All too. Just like full-bore retarded. Anyway the mutant mongoloids on the cover are perfect indicators for the kind of 'core kept within. 

The vocals have that strange razor-thin mix of tuff-dude bellowing and down syndrome drooling. The Celtic Frost/Sheer Terror tonal breakdown in "H.R.M. Mayhem" is straight NASTY, like kitty litter gargling in a garbage disposal, and the "Cut to the Chase" weird psyche-out/double tracked vocals are glorious and evil. Nutshell? I love this. I think it'll take a few listens to sink in for many, but this is how 'core I like it.

Buy and D/L at their bandcamp here.

United Stance (Logo Power #2)

They come to snuff the Rooster Punx. 

Words to Live By #1

Not a long post today. GRE studying and working on the Drug Dogs Holiday Newsletter (not a joke). F'real doe. Look at the picture above. Live it. Love it. Lurve it. 

Crispus Attucks (Time Machine #1)

On this day, 13 years ago, this show happened at DC's Wilson Center. Pretty cool lineup, and for the goofballs that care about Thursday, it might be sort of astonishing to see them playing somewhere for only $5.

I never "got" Kid Dynamite. I still don't. 

Crispus Attucks is cool. I have their album Destroy the Teacher because one of my friends stole it from a chain CD store. Good punky hardcore with (if I remember correctly) mostly political lyrics. If anyone listens to the Dissonance Podcast, there are some pretty choice episodes that have a guy from C.A. on them. One of them is called 'When Good Punk Goes Bad' and it's strictly about really crappy punk songs from bands that used to be good (notably playing something from the oft neglected Clash album Cut the Crap). That's all I can really say.

No Justice rules. Just search any of their live sets on youtube (especially their last show). Stuff getting thrown all over the place, and a madman vocalist (Timmy) with no regard for his own safety. Really cool, not a lot of songs, but most of them are great. Big fan of the version of "Political Scheme" that appears on the Memories of Tomorrow compilation that came out on Youngblood. Sounds much fiercer than the one on Still Fighting.

Ancient Heads Demo Vol. II (Demo Dogz #6)

like...yoinks Scoob! 

Woah. I slept on their first demo, but came across the second installment to find that it's a ripper. These dudes are from Toronto, they're straight edge and I heard physical versions of their cassettes were being sold at Not Dead Yet fest in Toronto, and that piqued my interest enough to try and procure one (details on how you can do so at the end of this post). 

The name "Ancient Heads" is awesome. I mean, there's so many interpretations. I'm imagining deep space explorers crash landing on some old planet of humanoid raccoons. They happen upon the hidden temple, cloaked deep within the reaches of a steaming jungle to find rows and rows of ancient heads...that are EXACT replicas of their own! The explorers freak out and...yeah, it pretty much writes itself. The other would be like "Heads" (meaning "experts" or "fanatics" of the "ancient" variety). Like an ancient sneaker head...or something else even more ridiculous that my brain is struggling to come up with. 

The Andrew Peden cover art is insane. I Love the stippling and the image of a youth-crew kid running away from a Scooby Doo-esque mummy.  Also I'm a fan of the Youth of Today graffiti on the pyramid wall. Imagine Ray and Porcell being chased by mummies. It's Boomerang-channel gold!

Tunewise, this has some definite youth crew elements, but doesn't completely pander to that aesthetic, so if that ain't your bread n' butta, don't shut off. In the riffs and urgency I hear traces of Floorpunch, but it's a little bit burlier, and the punchiness can probably be attributed to a recording/production by Jonah Falco, but it's fresh and vital in ways that a lot of the youth crew type bands aren't really nailing.  Also that mosh part in "Waste of Life" that cannot (should not?) go unmentioned as one of the more well-placed bits of a core song. 

Verdict: Definitely check this out. Bandcamp here and if you couldn't trek to NDY last month, you can still score a physical cassette here. 

Free Spirit: Everything Dies #1

Be Yourself

Mannnn....bye bye Free Spirit. And the promo tape is SO good too. :(