Hey Gang,
wrote this iPod dump last summer. Never published it. Can't remember why. Oh well. Enjoy some asinine opinions from 6 months ago!
The Prowl - "Trapped" (What Are Your Doing?, Gloom 2002)
A fast w.mass band that was really influenced by slasher movies and some of the "darker" punk bands of decades, namely T.S.O.L and the Adolescents and stuff like that. Also "dementia" but how many bands use that as a reference? Oh yeah. All of them. I really liked The Prowl, and if I remember correctly, they got crap from MRR or Razorcake or some other dumb punk rag because of the artwork on this 7". A friend of mine had this very 7" and his parents found it in his room and were "quite steamed over it." The Prowl actually has a fair amount of stuff floating around, and even re-emerged in like 2011 or something like that. I haven't paid much attention to their more recent output though.
"What doesn't kill me makes me stronger," is an oft repeated idiom in hardcore, ever present in this song, only I'm semi-certain that this entire album is about the mind of a serial killer or something like that. "Can't get out, the hole's too deep." Have fun with that lyric tee-hee.
2.
Pearl Jam "Oceans." (Ten, 1991 Sony) Here's where some dingus-dumpling gives me shit for having Pearl Jam in my iTunes library. I can't help it that I went to middle school in AMERICA. You probably have Twitching Tongues in yours, which means you're just as stupid and have equally horrid taste. Find me one red-blooded American male between the ages of 25 and 35 who didn't have a brother/cousin who owned Ten or who didn't own it himself. Good luck, dipshit.
PJ has always been good...even when they've sucked (Binaural) and it's a shame that it took a Cameron Crowe documentary to bring people back around. I saw 'em in 2003 at Rupp Arena supporting the Riot Act album (underrated AF! "You Are" is a softrock smasher). Incredible. Arena rawk. T'was tight.
Anyway..."Oceans" is probably about surfing or some other dumb shit. Eddie Vedder wrote the lyrics in a notebook while he was locked out of the studio, and just listened to Jeff Ament's bassline through the studio wall. They overdubbed a pepper shaker and a fire extinguisher as makeshift percussion, which seems kind of dumb but in retrospect it's totally the kind of hippie nonsense this band would be into. Rumor has it that they included this song on Ten because it was one of the "weirder" tracks and they wanted to explore that kind of stuff later on (No Code). Truthfully, this and "Release" were the songs I listened to the LEAST on Ten because...you know...they didn't rawk hard enough, but I've come around on it as I've aged a bit. Watch the video below if you wanna watch black and white footage of Pearl Jam members looking quizzically at water and stuff.
3.
Haymaker - "Caught in a Mosh." (Fuck America, Deranged 2003)
The second cover song since I've started doing these. I love Haymaker and everything they've done. Reading reviews of their shows in Town of Hardcore made me legit angry that I'd likely never see them live (I just want to get firecrackers thrown at me, is that too much to ask for at a hardcore show?), and I think their side of the Fucked Up split is terrific.
I guess I like this cover just fine, (and I do know that they played it live...so the mosh part would've been bonkos), but as a fan of Anthrax (the good era of Anthrax), it kinda sucks that Belladonna's cool vocal patterns couldn't be replicated here. I know, I know. What did I expect? Not everyone got their vocal chords rubbed by the finger of a falsetto-crooning diety, I'm just sayin...had I never heard the original I wouldn't be bugged by it, but that's just how it is. That's how covers work.
All that being said though, with all this "put me in a ______ pit" goofery I see on social media, I have to chortle at this predeterminant reference to being "caught in a mosh." As if a "mosh" is one of those dust clouds that Wile E. Coyote could get sucked into, all flying fists and elbows, and couldn't escape. Haymaker is a perfect hardcore band. Everything they released deserves attention. Sucks that it's a cover song that came up, but that's just how it goes down sometimes.
4.
Breather Resist "Astigmatism." (Charmer, Jade Tree 2004)
I didn't really like this band. Did people really like this band? I feel like beard people really liked this band. My best friend Keith really liked this band. They're from Louisville, so I was supposed to like them, but Jesus Lizard aping aggro mathrock that actually just sounds like Coalesce just doesn't flip my cookie. I did have a hand in booking them for a benefit show for a person who faked a brain tumor to bilk money from people. SRS. There's an entire blogpost in that alone. I'll get crackin.
They do weird finger-tappy stuff in this song, and there's a vocoder effect at the end that loops into a sample of people applauding. It's the last song on the record, and Charmer had really cool album art and packaging....ugh. Just not for me. Just not good. Listen to Young Widows. Way better.
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