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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
or find them on myspace here
you can also check out think tank herehere'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!
Seriously ace."
Yo punkz, i'm 2 cozy 2 live... 2 cozy 2 die...
thanksgiving is fast approaching, in this world of epic bullshitz it's our prerogative to be as crucially cozy as we wanna be.
here is the first of some tactical tips for cozy cruciality;
tip. 1.
wrap your hand around something warm and strong... like a glass of honey brandy.
put some honey and some brandy into a pot. let the stove rock shit. and then drink it = cozy as shit.
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
jay reatard's blog
i might see radon 2nite. probably won't.
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.
