Accept Yourself

Few tapes, bought from a mate.

Forcefed- Demo 2008 tape. Painkiller Records #6.5.

Shark Attack- 'Feeding Frenzy' demo tape. My War Records.

Nightprowler- 'Crime Wave' demo tape.

Converge Demo Tape

Obviously this isn't mine. It was up on eBay something like three or four years ago if memory serves. I watched it, I bid too, but it went for something crazy like $500. Clearly that's a little excessive for a demo tape, no matter how big the band is. I made sure I saved the pics at the time, as I was pretty sure i'd never again have the chance to do so. I've been right so far. I think this is from something like 1990. If you've heard this material, you'll understand just how extremely different the band sounds these days.

Gourmet Pez

As ridiculous as I may sound saying this, of all of the 'classic' Californian PV bands of the late 80's/early 90's, MITB would have to be one of my least favourites. I just can't handle most of the bands catalogue, it just gets too abstract for me, too noisy. It's a similar story for Capitalist Casualties and fastcore. I can never listen to more than ten minutes of their stuff, it just gets too repetitive, the same goes for groups like Spazz and Hellnation etc. It's almost ironic, as it's probably fair to say that one of my favourite Australian bands takes direct influence from groups of this ilk. Anyway, this repress of the MITB/CC split LP is a bit of an exception to that standard. Both bands seem to be on their top game here, especially MITB. Andy Beattie of No Comment contributes most of the vocal work for this release, and it lifts their side so much. Add to the fact that this is probably one of the cleaner MITB recordings and you've got a winner. Capitalist Casualties play for the most part the same old stuff, fast fast fast, but most of the songs are pretty catchy and well written.

Second press. Six Weeks Records. Black vinyl. The first press was back in 1994.

In contrast to most of the reissues i've posted about recently, this one comes as a rather simplistic layout and package, as with most MITB stuff anyway. Fitting for the band I think. Let the music do the talking etc.

Teeth Of A Cogwheel

Mr. Wangstein posted about this bands earlier work not more than 30 minutes ago. I don't know enough about them to be able to post about that era of their recorded history, but I can post about the 'Red Album' by Baroness right now, and guess what, it's happening! Like 'The Shape Of Punk To Come', this is the only Baroness album I listen to, somewhat by choice, somewhat by ignorance I guess. The album after this, the 'Blue Album', I found pretty boring, and as a result it rarely sees play time on my itunes. I am still yet to check out earlier stuff, but after Craigs post tonight, I may just have a dig. This album though, has been on a regular digital listening schedule for the last twelve months, so when I saw it at Resist Records on my recent Sydney trip, I grabbed it. Double LP, gatefold sleeve that makes full use of the epic John Dyer Baizley artwork. I don't ever get excited about crazy colourways, but I enjoy this mix of red and white quite a bit. Relapse Records know how to press a good piece of plastic.
Inside of the gatefold, with lyrics and all relevant liner notes etc, as with pretty much every gatefold ever. The artwork here, I find a little boring. It serves a purpose though I suppose.
Another insert though, that serves no real purpose, but to show off some more artwork. Kinda feels pointless, but I guess real art nerds might enjoy it? It is good none the less.
Have I ever told you about my hatred for barcodes on vinyl records? Hate with a passion and a capital H. I like the way it's done here though.

Turmoil Interview

Philadelphia's, Turmoil's LP from 1999, 'The Process of...' I suppose you could describe as a 'gateway' album for me in terms of becoming more aware of hardcore in America. At a time when the majority of stuff I was listening to was of the RoadRunner Records variety (Machine Head etc)this album really stood out to me for a number of good reasons. At the time for me it was some of the rawest heavy music I had ever heard. It also seemed so real, and so angry. The bands vocalist at the time Jon Gula certainly had a very discernible style that resonated in me strongly. This album still gets heavy rotation at my residence, and I don't think that will ever change. A new album with new singer Nate Johnson has been on the cards for a good three or four years now. Who knows if it will ever happen. I preferred Gula anyway. I've not posted an interview on here in a long long time. I still have a load of records to post about, but I'm feeling exceptionally lazy tonight, and taking photos is way too much of an effort, so this seems like the perfect opportunity to post one of my oldest interviews with the band. To be honest with you, I'm actually kind of surprised I haven't posted this interview earlier really. Some of my questions tend to lean towards the nooby side, but gimme some cred, this is verging on five years old, penned in a time when I still thought everything was great in the world. LOL. This appeared in TheSharpEndZine #2. This is an interview with one of the bands guitarists, John Hodges.

Your back after five years. What are the reformed Turmoil's motivation and plans, ie what made you want to get the band going again? What happened in the meantime, other bands you were in etc?

We were contacted by Ray from Century Media / Abacus about doing a retrospective discography type thing and a reunion show to go along with the release of the cd so that got the ball rolling a little bit but mostly it came out of us wanting to play again together on a more personal level. We’ve all remained friends over the years and our other bands (The Deadly, The Kiss Of Death) played together several times and it was a little wierd seeing my former band mates up on stage without being there myself. So after we got together to talk about this discography and reunion show thing we decided we’d rather try doing it full time again rather than be one of those cheesy reunion show bands that just cashes in on an oppurtunity or fad. So we decided we’d write a couple new songs to put on the discography and try doing it full time again.

In the five years that we weren’t doing Turmoil a couple of us focused on having grown up careers among other things. Gula, Hydro and Gardner started The Kiss Of Death and put a cd out on Tribunal Records, I started The Deadly and we just put out an LP on Pluto Records. I also wrote / recorded an LP with Lickgoldensky and did some tours with them as well. So wev’e been keeping busy with music since ‘the breakup’ and haven’t really lost any steam as far as that goes.

You guys are five years older than you were when you broke up. Has this affected the band in any ways, do you see certain things in a different light, have personal views / attitudes changed within the band during the years you were broken up?

I guess we’ve grown up a little, maybe even mellowed out a bit. Mainly I think we understand that it’s not worth it to let bullshit get to us anymore. I think we’ve matured as musicians a little and we have more things to throw into the hat when we are writing and we’re not afraid to try new things because they may not be ‘hardcore’ enough. We’re trying to write what we like to play and hopefully kids will like it and if they don’t, we’re okay with that too. It’s definately made us a little more selective of the shows we play as well being that we all have serious jobs and all. We just want to make sure that we make the most out of the time we spend on the band and that we don’t resent the decisions that we make.

Would you mind giving some insight into the ‘Hellfest Fiasco’ (in Oz we’re not too farmiliar with that) and things leading up to the original break up?

It’s a long and boring story about Hellfest, but i’ll give you the basic rundown of what happened. Hellfest was to be Turmoils last show and so we were scheduled to headline the night we played. The whole weekend was very unorganized and there were a million problems and last minute venue changes. There were bands that travelled thousands of miles that didn’t get to play that year. So as the night went on things ended up running later and later until the point that when it came time for us to play it was around midnight if not later. All night we had been trying see if maybe another band would switch with us so we could play a full set but no one wanted to because there were tonnes of kids there. So when it came time for us to play we started playing our set and got shut down three songs into it. That was Turmoils last show. Ended in a shitstorm and all of us felt really cheated. To ice the cake also we didn’t get paid a cent and were exluded from the Hellfest dvd for whatever reason. We ende up throwing the rest of our merch from the roof of our van and went home. It was a real bad time and I was sad that it ended like that. The one cool thing is that the kids that did stay and watch us were going crazy and made it fell real good while it lasted. There was a point when we were palying ‘Killing Today For A Better Tomorrow’ that it was just drums at the end of the song and a thousand kids screaming the words. Pretty insane. That was definatelty the highlight of the night.

Turmoil were one of the heaviest acts of the 90’s hardcore explosion and you got quite big as well. A few bands like Converge, Hatebreed and Nine lived on from those days while many faded away, Victory now have more emo than heavy bands on their roster and many ‘hardcore til death’ tattoos have been covered up. In hindsight do you think it was a trend after all?

It’s like they say, the cream rises to the top. The bands that stay together and play uncomprimising, heavy music and put on an energetic live show will always do well. We just played a weekend with Converge and Nine and those bands are great live bands and their records are continually getting better with each release. They havent changed their sound to cash in on the latest trend which is all the scream and sing cookie cutter bullshit that’s flooding the record these days. I don’t think hardcore is a trend at all. It’s only trendy to be the kids that are in and out of it in six months. You’ll always have kids that are band wagon jumpers. You get to see that alot when you tour as much as we have. It’s like each time you come around to a city there’s a new crop of kids at the show. As far as lables go, there are some lables that are more ‘buisness’ minded than others that focus on music they would actually listen to.

What about the scene now? Is there one and do you see yourselves as a part of it or do you feel that all of those scene boundaries should never have existed in the first place? Does that line of thinking (being part of something, ‘true til death’ mentalty) change with age?

There’s definately a scene now. Personally i’m part of an older scene at this point and I don’t go to as many hardcore shows per se unless it’s a band i’m really into. I’ve always been really selective of the bands in the scene that I like anyway. Turmoil is definately part of the scene and i’m sure everything is going to work out for us once we have a record out. The younger kids always end up replacing the old heads as far as hardcore goes. That’s the way it’s always been and probably always will be. I think the thing that changes with age is that you just have more responsibilities in general that come before going to shows. We still see alot of kids that have been into it forever coming out to shows so I don’t really think the mentality changes all that much. It’s just that kids get older like I said before they have other things to think about than hardcore.

What is Turmoil about? Do you have an agenda; do you support certain political views or attitudes or the like, anything besides the music that could / should be affiliated with the name Turmoil?

Turmoil has always been about trying to touch on issues that affect us personally and politically. That and of course challenge ourselves musically. Because after all who listens to a band rant on about politics if they can’t write a decent song? I think we’re all in agreement that the current US administration is probably the worst we’ve seen in our lifetime which is what one of our newer songs (Commander And Thief) is about. I think if there’s one message that Turmoil puts out there it’s do your homework and educate yourselves about the issues going on in the world today and make up your own mind. There are so many people in the media trying to tell you what to think these days. Especially with all of the spin that’s coming out of Washington that it’s hard to get the facts. Like Public Enemy said- don’t believe the hype.

Did you ever have any problems with you label Century Media? If so, what were they, how did that affect the band and what is the situation now?

We did have problems with Century Media before. We didn’t really think that they were

working as hard as we were to make the band successful. Our records had distribution

problems that made it hard for kids to find and they wanted to give up on records

before they were even out a year. It was eventually what lead to the break up of the

band. I’ll say that they’ve come a long way since then and we’re waiting to see what

they do with this release before we judge them. They have some pretty good people

working for them right now so hopefully we can benefit from that.

When are we going to hear a new Turmoil album or any new material? On

what label?

Abacus is putting out a discography with all of our stuff (except the Bad Brains cover)

september 20th. It has three new songs that we recorded in march. We’re pretty happy

with how it came out. It sounds like we picked up right where we left off.

How come you did some dates in Europe / Scandinavia before the reunion show in

your hometown of Philly?

We thought it was a good opportunity to fine tune our live set and get warmed up for

the Philly show. Plus we were excited to get out and see our friends in Europe. At that

point we were still deciding where exactly to have the Philly show also it gave us a little

more time to get tight.

The most influential hardcore countries in the nineties were Sweden and the States.

If Sweden and US hardcore had a fight who would kick who's arse?

Sweden’s a pretty small country compared to the US so I think we’d win just based on

the numbers. But if your talking quality bands per capita I think i’d give it to Sweden.

Alot of good music comes out of that country. I think you can chalk up influential to

oneSwedish band and that’s Refused. I don’t know how many kids were influenced by

The donuts over here. haha.

Your best / worst moments as a band?

Best: there are a million of them. Touring with Snapcase and Earth Crisis. All good

times. The Philly return show was one of the best shows we’ve ever played. For some

reason every time we’ve played Italy it’s been amazing. Playing Munich last new years eve was incredible. Getting to meet Mille from Kreator in Essen was a high point for me. Definitely one of my metal heroes. The ferry ride to Finland with Nine was on i’ll never forget.

Worst moments definitely included Hellfest 2000 and the time Gula tried to murder me at Denny’s. I wasn’t there but there was a time on the way home from Buffalo where the rest of the guys almost froze to death after our van broke down. Getting detained at the Canadian border was hell on earth. Being booked by John Finberg though was probably the worst of all. That guys sucks.

Gayest country you have visited?

Canada for two reasons:

1) We were denied entry once and they made us sleep in the freezing cold van until immigration came and fined us an incredible amount of money. 2) The time we actually did get into the country we were robbed in front of the El Mocambo in Toronto and a tonne of our merch was stolen. We also found out the same night that one of the three Canadian shows we had booked was cancelled. Needless to say we drove home after the first show and said fuck Canada the whole way home.

Refused Party Program

This is the new reissue of the seminal classic by Refused, 'The Shape Of Punk To Come'. While alot of my friends rave on about earlier work by these guys, this is the only Refused album I like, and I believe for good reason. Reissued by Epitaph, mine is on black wax. The first 500 came on blue.
You either love, or hate this band. Brilliant stuff I think, so many cool sounds going on. Double LP, as opposed to the single LP format of the original press. Much the same artwork and layout of the original.

Lyrics, liner notes etc on the glossy dust sleeves.

Gatefold sleeve.

World Of Fools

Two records by two Aussie bands. Both of which I grabbed at Hardcore 2010. First is the new Blkout 7", 'No Justice, No Peace', with the limited HC2010 cover. Do I need to explain the covers inspiration? I managed to score the limited preorder colourway of grey and maroon too, apparently not all of them came with this, they just used some leftovers from preorders. Nice. Resist Records.
End of the day, I have never been crazy about this band. Not crazy enough to really warrant buying this record anyway. I wasn't going to initially, but then I thought about it's potential flip value on eBay in six months time. That, and I do like the cover rip.
I hate barcodes on record sleeves. Why does a limited cover of this nature, that's obviously only going to be sold at hardcore shows, manage to be burdened with such an ugly intrusion? I don't get it. I should mention that mine is hand numbered 12 of 50, though I forgot to get a proper photo of that bit.

I find this band boring live, the singer kind of just waves and bops around on stage while wearing his Fred Perry shirt, Polo cap, and Ksubi jeans. Not my thing, best of luck to him though.
And the new Ill Brigade 7", 'In This Age', on preorder purple wax. Another record I was lucky enough to pick up with a limited colourway. Common Bond Records (Resist Records subsidiary) . These guys were pretty good live, though I don't think that many people really got into them. Shame really, they were certainly better than Blkout.
Absolution rip off sleeve. They do a Breakdown cover on here too. Band knows what they're on about.

Another barcode, eurgh.

Life Is Pain

Coupla LP's, both with a similar vibe I guess. Well I'd say that the second one takes certain cues from this first one. LP in point: the reissue of Merauder's 'Master Killer'. Black and pink wax. Reaper Records are responsible for this one. A good label that seems to be reissuing heaps of great stuff lately. Obviously not the OG artwork, but what they've done here is a really cool idea. They've used the skeleton samurai thing still, but put it amongst a scene of chaos on the Brooklyn bridge. Fitting. I like it.

Fold out insert with lyrics etc, and this tribute to S.O.B., the bands original guitarist.

The other side of the insert with this collage. Does every reissue ever get a collage? I think so.

The matrix scribe. My mate owns a test of this reissue. What a prick.

And hate if you have to, but the first Hoods LP, 'Time... The Destroyer'. Everything they did after this one sucked major butthole, but I love this album. Ignorant, arrogant tough guy hardcore. So much metal, so good.
Victory Records release, but this is the Australian edition that Drug Bust Records pressed. They did this with a bunch of Victory stuff from this era, including Buried Alive and No Innocent Victim. Very simple packaging. Just the sleeve and record. No insert.

Learn To Love The Lie

I've had this one for a few weeks now, just haven't had the time to post about it. Anyway, here is the new Integrity LP, "The Blackest Curse". White/creamy vinyl. Deathwish Inc.
Regardless of what most people say about these guys, you can't deny the commitment Dwid certainly possesses when it comes to Integrity. If you dismiss the dark years of Integrity 2000 etc, the band does have a pretty impressive catalogue under thier collective belts. This album isn't an exception. Heavy hardcore. Certainly more thrashier leanings than "To Die For For", of which in part I think you can attribute to the recording/production style. This is easily the closest they've come to the true Melnick sound, without actually having him in the band.
Totally blank sleeve, free of visible text, though it's all there embossed. The front has a full size embossed skull logo, and the back has the song titles, as you'd expect. I've tried to get the best photo of it that I could. You get the idea anyway.

And a large size fold out poster.

Good album from a good band. They'll obviously never write something on par with the caliber of Systems or Humanity again, but they certainly outshine just about every heavy hardcore band of the last five years with this LP. They have a few more releases slated for the next 6 months, including a split with Rot In Hell, of which I've already paid for, just waiting for it to arrive. Organized Crime Records also has orders up now for the repressing of "For Those Who Fear Tomorrow". I'm broke at the moment, but you should order it.

Fucked In The Head

I'll get these tapes out of the way first...

This is a new bootleg Extortion tape. Extortion were selling a handful of these at their merch table this past weekend. Rohan tells me that he saw someone selling a copy of it on eBay recently, so he hit up the seller for a handful for the band themselves. Seems fair enough too. The tracks on here are from the Rupture split 5" and the split 7" with Septic Surge. No new material.

Nice, clean packaging. Mine is numbered 17 of 100.

The Mindless 'Human Conditioning' tape from the Finacial Ruin label. RSR has the 7" ready to go now. I have mine on the way. This is Faiza Kracheni's (ex Hatred Surge) other band. Good powerviolence is what you get here.

Always quality packaging from Financial Ruin.

Since I was ordering from Financial Ruin, I thought I'd try something else too. This is the Cellgraft demo tape. Brutal grindcore from Florida.

Numbered 52 of 300.

This is a friends band's demo. Lustration from here in Brisbane. Dan plays bass. They play pretty epic 80's influenced black metal. This tape is lo-fi as fuck. Heaps of tremolo riffing etc. I'm starting a band with Dan. Can't wait.

Once again, hand numbered. 94 of 150.

Piss And Venom

Hardcore 2010 weekend has just passed, and as usual when I'm in Sydney, I spent a SHITLOAD at Resist Records. Combine that haul with the stuff that I've received by way of the mailman over the last week and I have enough stuff to post about now for the next month or two. Things start happening tomorrow. Until then enjoy Black Teeth. Can't believe I've slept on them until now. Doom/sludge/hardcore from Illinois.

Brutal Pharmaceutical

News of a new Hatred Surge release has surfaced over the last fortnight, being in the form of a split LP with Mammoth Grinder, which will see a release thanks to Cyclopean Records. This week, the band posted two new tracks on their myspace, one from said forthcoming split, and the other from the 4 way split they have coming out with Mind Eraser, Scapegoat and Iron Lung through Painkiller Records. First thing you'll notice is that neither of these new songs have any female vocals via the pipes of Faiza Kracheni. Rahi aka 'Gargling Urine' of Insect Warfare fame has taken her place as the new full time lead vocalist, and while I did eventually grow to enjoy Faiza's approach on the last Hatred Surge LP, this development has caught me with my pants down. Does that even make any sense? Being the Mammoth Grinder and Insect Warfare fan boy that I am, lets just say that I am really excited. Check the tracks here, and get siked.

Jesus Hitler/Adolf Christ

The following is a copy of the Carnivore live LP, "I Am A Meat Eater". This is a few tracks from really early on, 1984 to be precise, before either of their LP's had been released. Rough sound, but the recording lends heavily to a pure 80's thrash metal vibe. Perhaps they didn't really settle on a more cross-over approach until later on after this was recorded?
Biscupid Records put this bad boy out last year. 400 of these black copies, and 100 on blue so I've read.
Not much to say, other than that this isn't actually mine, it's a friends. He just let me borrow it, and I figured I'd blog about it, seeing as Carnivore are just about the best cross-over band that ever existed. Long live Pete Steele!