Pawn Shop Diaries #1 (Alone in a Crowd/Inside Out "split")

What was the last CD you bought brand new? I can't remember if mine The Stokes Is this It or Queens of the Stone Age Songs for the Deaf, but I use each interchangeable depending on who I'm talking to. Most of us came up on CD's, even if HC will always be a tape n' vinyl game. 

At the very earliest onset of our addiction to the HC disease, me and my retarded friends perpetuated stories we'd heard about all the "old" hardcore guys in our shitty little Kentucky suburb that would sell off huge swaths of their hardcore memorabilia collections in exchange for drugs, floating unprecedented numbers of punk and hardcore errata throughout the pawn + trailer court circuit of town.  Of course, once we'd become cognizant of it, everything  Rev, Shiz, Taaang and Touch & Go had long since been snatched up, leaving behind only the dregs for us to root through: spotty reissues, bootlegs, second tier youth crew tapes and a whole fuckload of hardcore CD's that no one else seemed to want, all housed in a non-descript used video game shack off Dixie Highway in E-town. Methinks they didn't know about EBay.

Sometime between the stages of "dewy-eyed core-ling" and "radio rock graduate" (2003) an acne riddled, straight edge version of me bought this CD off a dollar rack. The varsity lettering alone caught my attention but to this point I was barely familiar with the Cali version of Inside Out (eloquently cited as "rope haired, commie, spiritual minded, soon to be rap metal freaks from California" in Chunks #2). Of course, only now do I know the superior IO.  

It's like that scene in Empire Strikes Back

Lost & Found, the oft maligned euro bootlegger label, mashed these classic 7"s together and though I can't vouch for the horrid cover art, I will have to credit them for hipping me to 2 essential and vastly underrated NYHC records. Both of these releases can be found in their official capacities elsewhere, but both come highly recommended, as does the live Alone in a Crowd set.

It's mostly downhill from here though. Stay tuned for less essential fare from the dollar bins. 

Free Spirit 2012 Demo (Demo Dogz #5)

Pink-Hand Sandies

Free Spirit doesn't need an introduction, but this demo does. Woah. It's a little teaser for the forthcoming 12" (which promises to be a stomper) and I'm going to say it showcases a bit of a "darker side" for them. 

The vocals are way nastier and burlier (I should know this, but is that Gil singing? It sounds quite a bit different than on other releases) and the drums have Paincave mitts all over them. I get vibes from Alone in a Crowd (mostly in the lyrics) and the mosh bits remind me of Uniform Choice. Why do so many people hate this band again? I don't know. Screaming for Change is perfect.

Dig the artwork too. Pink is punx and so are hand-drawn graphics of fists. The cursive lettering is a cool Straight Ahead homage (maybe?) too. 

Anyway, a really muddy version of "Casting Down" was featured on the Joy Boy Mixtape Vol. III, but this one's a lot cleaner. Opening riff rules and the back and forth vocal trick is clutch. "Control You" has a bit of a funky backbeat with an ironclad mosher, and both "Figure You Out" and "Selfish" showcase great divebombs (and the latter really reminds me of UC's "Scream to Say").

Very excited for the upcoming full-length. These are my favorite songs they've done so far.

Cassettes are only available at the shows, so the journeymen can have their pic, but for those of us not in the city-limits, we can take a samplin' here.