there's an interview with Fresno's the maniax in the next issue of mrr...
the maniax were the pre-think tank band... they had a song on mrr's "not so quiet on the western front comp" and then morphed in to think tank without releasing anything else. they played one show..at San Francisco's "The Mab" w/ Cap. Punishment and some other Fresno bands. They also were invited to tour Germany w/ Black Flag and Flipper but couldn't because they were in Junior High school!
They just released a 20+ song "lost tapes" anthology that has some pretty killer material on it... you can check it out here
here's a preview/excerpt from the interview... (should be on newstands in the next couple weeks... it's in the issue after the punks in film issue)
MRR: What was “Blitz fanzine?”
Gregg: Blitz was a little Xeroxed ‘zine created by Gary Shuster (guitarist in the original Think Tank line-up) and me in the early ‘80s. It was less focused on the punk music scene than featuring essays on politics and culture and art/media collages, reviews, etc. We soon got distribution through Rough Trade and somehow the ‘zine went around the world even though we were literally making copies of it at Gary’s Dad’s hospital copy machine. You know, we actually met the Clash up close & personal because of Blitz: back in 1984 during the “Cut the Crap” tour when Joe Strummer and Paul Simenon were still touring as the Clash (without Mick Jones), they came to Fresno and played the Warner Palace downtown. Needless to say, we were surprised and amazed that while we were waiting in line to get in, Clash road manager Kosmo Vinyl came up to us and asked us, “Hey, aren’t you the guys who put out Blitz? Joe is a big fan, and he wants to meet you…” To this day, I still don’t know how they recognized us, but they took us backstage and suddenly we were hanging out having a beer with Joe, while Paul was grooving with his boombox blasting dub. We couldn’t believe that Joe Strummer liked our little ‘zine, much less wanted to meet us. Actually, one of our Maniax songs, “Wanna Be English,” is an ode to wanting to be “just like Joe.” Too bad he’s gone now. RIP Joe.
if you would have asked me when i was in seventh grade what my favorite album on epitaph was I would have answered with no hesitancy that Rancid's "And out come the wolves.." was not only the best record on epitaph, it was, in fact the greatest fucking record ever.
today i am not ashamed of my one time intense devotion to rancid. if you were to ask me today what the greatest record to ever come out on epitaph was i'd answer with little to no hesitancy that Ruth Ruth's "The little death" ep is without a doubt the greatest record to ever come out of epishitaph (or epicrap???!!! booya! my humor knows no bounds... be they the heights of awesome or the bounds of good taste).
ruth ruth's album "the little death" was one of their mid period albums. their first album found them with a video on mtv. but that album sucked shitty turds. their albums after "the little death" sucked shittier turds.
but the "little death" (and the brainiac 7" that came out after it on Deep elm records) is a treasure.
There are some fab lyrics and killer jams that simultaneously remind me of the Cars and a tiny bit of the Replacements.
part of what is killer about it is that it is so inherently dorky and lame. and that it is sort of made in that context. with the knowledge that it is totally dorky and lame (but also killer), and because it is rubbed down with that awareness it's hard not to enjoy getting into it. these guys truly DID want to make it big and they failed miserably. if they wouldn't have failed miserably i probably wouldn't be touting this as killer. i'd probably be really disapointed and shit.
here are a couple of their jams... one song is my favorite, it's called Tenderlung and it's off "the little death" and another is way more poppy and it's off a later period record..
you can listen to their jams and find out more here
after you click on the word here in the previous sentence go to the "bands" part of the deep elm website and find ruth ruth
heres what someone else said about the record:
"An eighteen-minute burst of unblemished, soaring, three-piece power pop in dedication to Women Who Fuck You Up, by courtesy of a man who loves his mom. Complicated only by the fact that mom was emotionally involved at some point with another mom. And by life. In general.
Biological mom seems to be the namesake subject of opener, 'Julia, you have no heartbeat', whose tempestuous life he once spectated uselessly, aggravated unintentionally, now laments guiltily, only to find himself grown up and equally useless when participating in the equal tempests lived by the new women who absorb him -- the brave, neighbourhood Mrs Curley, bewitching New York boho singer and high school antisweetheart. All of whom may or may not be the same person, it's difficult to tell. Narrative thread isn't vital to The Little Death's startling, impressionistic songwriting, which employs mental snapshots and confabulated recollections to yield red-raw, heart-on-the-sleeve vignettes of some blinkin' intensity. Ruth Ruth singing dude is a flux of confused, infantilised but burgeoning masculinity -- his self-important desire to save the idealised woman he constructs around each of them founders spectacularly every time on the Maid Marian sex he duly expects, that surely she's expecting to give up. No! He didn't think it like that. She played a black guitar / hung around her neck in an empty New York bar. / With my mind full of make-believe / I dreamed I took her home and held her hand and watched TV. / Then she knew she needed me, / then I laughed and went, / "Don't cry".
When reality reimposes, they hang loosely together like a snapped curtain rod; he throws a party, she gets off with "that guido rat" and the last vestige of delusion dissipates. I liked you / from the moment that we met. / You took my poor virginity. / It meant the goddamn world to me. / I want you and I'll have you in the end. / Your ugly talents should be locked away... His jealousy and self-loathing are tangible like a high wind, his threats are full, his self-pity a hole in which to inter the present by grubbing up the past: the whirlwind peaks then breaks over the frantic demands he makes of his untouchable mother simply to tell him who he is. I found out later / that a dyke ain't daddy / but a big hunk o' love / with a waterproof memory. / The devil rode in / on a fifth grade pony / and he called me a faggot / then laughed like a showgirl. / I ran home / and turned on the radio. / Captain and Tenille / were fucking in the living room. / A thing like that / can change a boy... / Daddy can't shoot!
i'm back. all the way real. not really. still 2 cozy 2 live . 2 cozy 2 die . i'm sitting in my parents house.
i know what you're thinking. isn't the dude who owns raputin's is an asshole? probably. but the fresno rasputin is pretty well stacked.
almost picked up the dils lp that compiles their first couple 7's and some other shit. "you're not blank" is one of the greatest songs. i don't have the orginal 7' but i got the red vinyl german pressing from '93... so i passed on the lp. some of the other stuff on there is dodgy.
i almost bought the adverts lp, i have the adverts killer 7' w/ Bored Teenagers on it ...and as far as the rest of their catalogue, i'm not as bout it as 'Bored Teenagers' even though most of it is good.
the warsaw lp up on the wall looked good too.
here are a couple mp3s of rare-ish live stuff...
the giant haystacks dropping their mega-hit 'young shavers', it doesn't sound as good as the album version, but it's 4 sure not bad...
and nobunny dropping his/it's epic #1-ish jam 'chuck berry holiday'... this one has a little more juice than the album version...
fresno's best band has some new material... the dudez in For DIck's new stuff is actually pretty fucking killza... 'I Am A Goth' = kinda creepy.
Burma was rad... clint conley is rad.. i was so tired from crucial hours spent taxing my life that i almost fell asleep during the encore but pre-encore they played signals and some other hitz like peking spring which were rad.
a while ago i got thee makeout party's "i never pick my nose" cassette. i'd spent countless hours mulling over whether or not to crucially invest in the lp or the tape (you can get from their myspace)... what to do???? is the cassette format doomed for obscurity and insta-future destruction?!?!? am i somehow archiving these records for future generations by purchasing and upkeeping vinyl!! what are the real world implications of this for the future of punkz ?!?!?!?
(tape artz --------->>>) i got it on tape cause it was half the price of the lp and shitz been pretty crucial since. the album is rad but uneven, theres some really great stuff on it and a few songs that i skip over. it's like the ramones and the beach boys partied in san pedro. and sometimez the dude singing sounds like todd from underground railroad to candyland / toys that kill.
it's somewhat disconcerting that a lot of the really killer shit coming out right now and going directly into my world via my dome is either directly or peripherally associated with matador. matador is not punk. by any stretch. and not really rad. but shit some of those new jay reatard 7's are fucking unbelievable (except the trapped here 7" kinda sux)... i've been listening to the acoustic one non stop
my mind was blown when i got coffee at 7/11 for the first time in years. the assortment of specialty flavors is second to fucking none!!!! i was so amazed by my blueberry coffee that as the caffeine lifted my morning foggy haze the fucking blueberry crucialness lifted my head up into the fucking cloudz w/ it. it was fucking transcendental. probably like smoking salvia. i hear. i went around work monday morning explaining to everyone what a mind numbing (awesome) effect this 7-11 coffee had on my morning and the possibilities for fundamental changes in human comportment.
i wrote a song but i'm having trouble finishing the last line... so i put an idea in parenthesis.. any other ideas are welcome.
7-11 coffee you are so great you make me want to master (my own fate?)
ps. the blank dogs dude has blog w/ a bunch of free mp3s from the vinyl that's out of print.. check it... here
oh hey... i didn't hear you come in. i'm going to the mission of burma show tomorrow. i want 2 party with clint. listening to the new so cow 7"... it's really fucking good...
water cooler jam gossip? new dillinger four record??? does it chortle out cosmic thunder???? does it wallow in shitz????
this will be addressed in a new segment called "loverz and haterz!!!" topic::::
new D4 record "Civil War"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
crucial punditz for t'day... Mark (of Born Hairy/MCM fame) and Dave (of Sci-Fi Nightmares/MCM fame) have been both loverz and haterz. it's not about who's top or bottom.. it's about having a safe forum to express love. or hate.
mark;
"One could say that D4 has lost its edge, and that sentiment isn't entirely off-base. Overall, Civil War is a good record, one that would make me reach for it regularly and even sing along on occasion. This album isn't without its low moments however, the lack of piss and vinegar just feels too obvious not to mention. I think most of Paddy's songs are weak (Fruity Pebbles is really crappy, so much so in fact I wonder if it's a joke, though I think Parishiltonisametaphor is solid). There are also no songs with Billy singing lead vocals. I think one of the areas where D4 excels is when all three singers have songs. I just don't know if I'm really hearing six year's worth of efforts here.
The bright side is that there are a few real cookers too. 'Minimum Wage Is A Gateway Drug' is classic D4 both lyrically and musically. The plain truth is even the weakest D4 album is still destined to be one of the better records out this year. Just don't listen to it right after Midwestern Songs of the Americas."
dave:
"So when I first heard this record my knee jerk reaction was that this was the worst shit since that new Stooges record came out. Now that there has been some time to let the dust settle I've come to some new realizations. Is it as bad as "The Weirdness"? No. But, is it a good record? Once again, no. In the end, this record is just disapointing. The pace of the record is slower and the play time is longer. The production is weak. Paddy only contributes 3 songs to the record (which is fine by me, I've always thought Erik was the stronger writer) and they are the three worst songs on the record. The dynamics that once made this my favorite band are gone. It's just four dudes that have other things going on that decided to get together, go through the motions, and record some songs that they had individually written. That's what it sounds like at least."
Pate:
it kinda vibes arrivals by way of the new pinhead gunpowder. not as weird or compelling in my brain as the new FUcked Up record.. but more enjoyable to listen to. i'm way down wit it. dave said that the song "gainseville" 4 sure captured his experience living there. luvz it.
so there's all sorts of water cooler gossip scuttlebutting around the streetz. first up a gnarly reissue in the works...
crucial ups to 1 2 3 4 go records for getting a nobunny "love visions" lp reissue in the workx. shitz crucial. Some of the songs are fucking unbelievably catchy (i.e. I am a girlfriend) others are less than crucial but overall the record still fucking smokes... For people like me who slept on the first pressing... hit up the preorder... three hundred on gold vinyl. i stuck a nobunny mp3 at the end of this paragraph.. you can download some from dudez myspace too.
I've got an epic post in the works for soon with guest contributors and all types of shit... cause the new Dillinger Four record got leaked and so far lovers luv 2 luv and haterz luv 2 hate.
also... the new So Cow "Commuting" 7" is finally out... stoked for this........... get @ it @ Bakersfield's going underground records
makes me want to pull out my old Boys records. (check out this it's lame but cool video)
i thought some of those statues jamz were mind blowing. and they were. especially pin point.
but i don't know what to make of that marvelous darlings shit.
in other newz............ theres some gilman movie out i kind of want to see, some of the interviews and live footage look choice but some looks sketch... i got the gilman book a while back and partz were pretty interesting but on the whole a punk book like going underground is way more interesting. buy going underground here.
fucked up record update... i'm more intrigued that the new fucked up record is taking up so much of my epic brainspace than i am by the record itself. they put up a new song here. take the song black albino bones... the front runner for my album fave.. (i'm not gonna post that shit up here... cause the album hasn't been released yet and whatev) but that song was one of the songs that initially sketched me out the most. it had hardcore vocals with a really cleanly sung chorus. It was a similar idea to the wacness of the screamo/sing type shit of a lot of crap bands... but executed way differently. so whatever.
you've probably seen this. i hadn't. (big ups stan) this is the best music video i've seen in a while;
so yo, the new Fucked Up record... which is essentially a new agey-workout-hardcore record has started to grow on me a little. it's not bad... it's silly and cheesy but also rocking in the same vein as andrew wk. so i'm into it.
what's pretty good is that new pinhead gunpowder 7" like, it's suprisingly good. better than most of the stuff i've heard. i still like "achin to be" and "2nd street" better than most of the new songz. but those 2 are like classicz so they're hard 2 fuck wit. plus rumor has it that somebody from green day is totally in that band...
in pinhead gunpowder related newz... upon my summer revisitation of old cometbus' i gotta say that for realz the first 1/3 of double duce is pretty amazing.. like fucking fresh 2 death. you can hear samplez of some of their jamz by clicking on their linked up name at the start of this paragraph.
so... i know i got the new (old) observers recordings on the super hyphy green vinyl... only 200 pressed i think. it's a german release of their first demo so shit sounds raw and totallyz dope. check one of the songs here. even haterz are humbled by how hot that jam iz.
Am I a hippy if I really like Serge Gainsbourg and Archers of Loaf? that’s all I’ve been listening to. Anybody else heard the new fucked up record? It’s fucked up. I'd applauded those two twelve inch singles they’d done post “Hidden Worlds” because I thought they were some sort of novel experimentation. But they’ve only experimented in a linear non-experimental way, slowing down and getting more prog with each record. Which isn’t really experiemental. the new record “Chemistry of Commom Life” is by no means bad. It’s just not good.
I spent the morning walking around Noe Valley and into Mission letting my grilled pastrami sandwhich digest. Wondering if I wanted to catch the muni downtown. I decided I didn’t want to. Life is tough. Those types of decisions are mind wringing.
Some jams have surfaced recently that are ridiculously killer (I finally tracked down the canadian rifle / american cheeseburger split... for the Can. Rifle jamz) and i've also been stoking on the dead mechanical . while new arrivals have jammed some classics have been chortling up cosmic thunder.
The Nerves released an EP in 1976. All three dudes took part in the writing but the dude who later went on to be in the plimsouls penned the questionable plimsouls pop classic "million miles away." “Hangin on the telephone” is the best of the four Nerves songs on the 1976 EP. I guess blondie did a cover of it,i've never heard the cover but rumor is it's not bad. this nerves shit is classic. fresh 2 death.
here’s the nerves…
The Nerves Jam is way better but here’s the the Plimsouls a Million Miles Away video:
this is where the blog post gets sketch... heres a really awkward scene from valley girl w/ the plimsouls.
Also.. some powerpop from Ireland circa 1978… Here’s the Vipers classic “I Got You” shits rad... a piano???? a piano!!! uber poppy and catchy.
I was driving back up north, jamming on a bunch of old and some not so old Fresno music I’d found in my old room in my parents house. I’m going to post some of it on here. So this might piss some people off, but I think all of this is out of print/unreleased and not on myspace, and isn’t going to be hitting vinyl or cd or itunes or whatever anytime soon. But if anyone wants me to take their shit down then hit me up. Here are some jams from the archives. If anyone digs this shit let me know, I have a lot more old shit and I’ll toss some more up.
When I first got in the car to drive back up here I saddled into some of my old bands stuff. I’ll spare you that shitz. when I twerked it off the 99 and headed towards Los Banos I put in the old Fallouts Demo and my ears stoked on that shit. I didn’t remember it being that good. Those dudes had to be 13 or 14 when that was recorded. Think Crimpshrine by way of Op Ivy/Rancid and NOFX. I remember seeing those dudes a few times, mostly at CBA, and then when I left for college around 2001 Benny (vocals/guitar) left and my buddy James started playing with those dudes. A few years later they started playing metal and and changed their name to Bogan, and James left and they added un autre dude.
I’m kind of partial to the East Bay charms of the first demo. (Don't right click the link, click on it and it'll go to the mp3)
Here are a couple songs from both demos:
For a while I played in a band with Dave and if anything that might predispose me to not liking some of his bearded jam thunder. But when he left fresno and moved to Florida with his beard he hit me up with an acoustic demo of some of Sci-Fi Nightmares shit he was working on; the jamz was hot. Check out the myspace for fully mastered non acoustic version. The full version of this song should be on an upcoming 7” - here’s the unreleased acoustic cold and blue;
Occams Razor. I wasn’t in Fresno when these dudes were playing, I wasn’t even in the Country for a while when these dudes were playing. But when I moved back to Fresno someone hipped me to their tunes. I’d heard of them. I thought they were from Santa Barbara/Goleta, cause when I lived there I saw dudes were playing there. I never got too into their early output but their last 7” was pretty fucking great. Plus the artwork was killer. I found it in Bakersfield a while back. I don’t think it’s still in print. But if it is someone hit me up and I’ll remove this shit. This is probably one of the better records to come from fresno in the last fifteen years or so. So screamy; a ferocious kind of sass. (I just checked up on shit and it looks like theres one copy available here; hit that shit)
Heres a song off it and some of the artwork;
Wouldn’t be complete without a quick nod to Capitol Punishment. You can find more about them here. I’ve got the German pressing on white vinyl. Here’s two songs off of the two party system 7”; - this is out of print. But you should be able to get it on ebay without going broke.
also; check out the stage dive records page. Dale just put up an old altered features jam that’s pretty dope, plus check out the Think Tank MP3s here. Think Tank was the post Maniax jam. The maniax shit was pretty amazing; 13/14 year old dudes who got some airplay on MRR radio and got invited to tour with Flipper and Black Flag, but they couldn’t cause they were too young! Holy shit. They just released their cd here- check it out shitz crucial…
want more? the blog is back. much to the chagrin of the haters with good taste.
i got show reviews and a top 5 cooked up in an awkward sauce more thick and pungent than an r kelly video.
i learned how to use hyper link. click on green wordz.
whats up with good bands playing way too long. overexposure dude. even the best jamz can overstay their welcome. the pierced arrows (the newish dead moon band) played for 20 minutes and i was stoked and awash in the fred and toody hype. for the hour after that i got progressively more bored until i was standing there wondering if i should walk out. sunken cost dilemma. similar thing with the ergs last week.
brainworms and sex vid know how to reel it in. live they're hot shitz. brainworms = large dudes in tie dye. ex members of stop it, shit was pretty bangin. i got stoked as shit on their lp when it came out; the split 7's (with the exception of the nearly unbelievable erotic thunder of "Jay's Big Date") have been a little lackluster.
