Religious as Fuck / American Cheeseburger - split

The first thing that will grab folks’ attention about the Religious as Fuck/American Cheeseburger split is the cover, specifically the RAF side – it’s all furries! So cute and/or sexually deviant! The music contained within is not cute, however. Both bands rip through 10 songs apiece for the price of one album, providing listeners with a deal in stereo. Given just how much these bands sound alike, though, some people might not even notice that this is a split.

RAF goes first with 10 thrash/hardcore tunes in the vein of Assholeparade and Brain Handle. Topics include organized religion, the system and jerks, and how much those things suck. The songs blur together into a skull-crushing assault, which I hear is popular with the kids. This shit is raw. Just to put these songs into perspective, you get 10 tracks on one side of a 12-inch vinyl set to 45 rpm. That’s the same number of tracks as Get Happy!! at 1.36 the speed.

American Cheeseburger comes out the winner, though, if only because the band sprinkles some Southern humor in between audio attacks. Also, their songs sound like a jet engine if you stand a room or two away from the record player. The band covers much of the same territory lyrically as RAF, although they get points for being more direct. For example, here are all of the words to “I.V.O.W.”: “War isn’t working / Peace isn’t working / Welcome to hell / We’re all gonna die.” Now that’s a tasty burger.

regarding journalism.

I interviewed experimental woodwind folkie Julian Lynch for Patch.com as a favor to my buddy Sam Fran Scavuzzo. And by "favor," I mean he offered to pay me to write for him. Check it out here. It was a blast to research; Lynch is a really cool dude and people should check out his music.

Vinyl Vednesday 7/14/2010

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Pat Benatar’s In the Heat of the Night (1979) on black, Generation X’s Generation X (1978) on black, and Pretenders’ Pretenders (1980) on black.

Place of Purchase: I purchased my entire Benatar collection for a quarter at a defunct thrift store in East Norriton, Pa., while my (still incomplete) Generation X collection hails from Repo Records in Philadelphia. I’m not sure, but I think Pretenders came from either Siren Records or the Philadelphia Record Exchange.

Thoughts: While it’s often a fruitless hassle, digging for vinyl at thrift stores can be the most rewarding place to search, if only because of the cheap prices. Yeah, the quality isn’t always good, there’s usually a metric shit-ton of Christmas LPs to dig through, and my finds are generally limited to big names, but every so often the searching pays off. Such was the case when I decided to buy three Pat Benatar albums for $0.25. In the Heat of the Night, Benatar’s first album, remains my favorite. Benatar has a huge voice, but she was never skilled as a lyricist, as her weird sci-fi contribution “My Clone Sleeps Alone” attests. Ah, but she kicks ass on Geoff Gill and Clint Wade’s “Heartbreaker.” Benatar’s voice is suited for a lot of different styles, as the hard rock of “Heartbreaker” segues into the pop rock of “I Need a Lover.” The ambient “We Live For Love” is a guilty pleasure of mine, even though I know that I would love it just as much if someone like M83 dropped an identical song.

Generation X was an impulse buy, and a drunk one at that. My girlfriend and I stumbled into Repo one night, blitzed and not quite ready to drive. Within minutes I had about $100 worth of records stacked by the register. While I was waiting for Michelle to check out, I racked up another $80, this time including Generation X. I knew of the band thanks to frontman Billy Idol (His hit “Dancing With Myself” was originally on the last Gen-X album) and had read complimentary things about this pop-punk act. Also I was drunk. The record veers more towards the pop spectrum than The Sex Pistols ever did, thankfully. In fact, it opens with a cover of John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth.” While some of the songs are a little pandering (Although “One Hundred Punks” is a better up the punx anthem than anything The Casualties ever did), it’s still an excellent slab of pop-punk.

No offense, but Pretenders remains the best album Chrissie Hynde ever made. The track listing includes “Precious,” “Tattoed Love Boys” and “Brass in Pocket.” C’mon! Those songs are the greatest! The playing is fantastic, but it’s Hynde’s pissy indifference that sells it. When she sings “Baby I’m precious / Fuck off” on “Precious,” I believe her, but then she’s all types of vulnerable in trying to pick up a customer at the restaurant she works at on “Brass in Pocket.” This one is super catchy and emotional and just generally well-made.

Vinyl Vednesday 7/7/2010

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. Since today is 7/7, clearly I have to write about seven-inches today. It’s just proper etiquette. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: The Menzingers’ Hold On Dodge (2009) on brown, Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” single (1980) on black, and YACHT’s Don’t Put Out (2009) on black.

Place of Purchase: Dodge came from Interpunk.com, a punk merch site that I kind of hate because they don’t return your money when they run out of stuff. They just give you store credit. Queen was inherited from the Ferris record collection after my grandmother’s house got sold. Don’t Put Out was purchased directly from YACHT. They put out some interesting bootlegs from time to time.

Thoughts: While I was a huge fan of A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology, I actually didn’t get around to buying Hold On Dodge until a few months ago. It’s every bit as anthemic as the group’s other Clash/Billy Bragg rockers; its only crime is being too dang short. Otherwise, this one’s perfect – instantly memorable, super catchy, wickedly rocking. I’ve been big upping the Menzingers this year, and Dodge came into my life just as I was starting to overplay Chamberlain Waits.

Everybody knows “Another One Bites the Dust,” but how many people know its B-side, “Don’t Try Suicide?” Taken from Queen’s The Game, it’s a pretty awesome pro-life jam. Frontman Freddy Mercury informs the listener not to try suicide because:

1. You’re gonna hate it.

2. Nobody gives a damn.

I think some people commit suicide specifically because nobody cares about them, but maybe Mercury is on to something: Don’t be such wieners, clinically depressed people! Go listen to “Princes of the Universe!” Like Queen says, “Blow your brains out? / Don’t do that! / Yeah!”

I got into YACHT specifically because of this bootleg collection of covers of songs from Ladies and Gentleman, The Fabulous Stains. The film itself is a little made-for-TV-ish in terms of drama, but it gets the music right, accurately portraying punk and reggae at the time while also prefiguring riot grrrl and grunge by almost a decade. YACHT, being a disco/techno act masterminded by Jona Bechtolt, keeps the lyrics but ditches the music for something that’s a lot groovier but no less nihilistic. “Waste of Time” and “Professionals,” the two signature songs from the film, are presented here with delicious indifference from vocalist Claire Evans. “Waste of Time” also gets an extended remix, because why not?

Laura Stevenson and The Cans - 'Holy Ghost!'

When I think of Orgcore, I think of beards and things that are at least tangentially related to Hot Water Music (like beards!). I don’t think of pretty female-fronted indie tunes in the vein of Laura Veirs and a folksier Lemuria. Yet that’s what I received on Holy Ghost!, a seven-inch from Org-approved indie folk act Laura Stevenson and the Cans.

Holy Ghost! offers three tunes for consideration. Opener “Mouthbreather” starts off modestly, just softly strummed guitar while Stevenson asks the eponymous mouthbreather to, uh, “breathe deeper.” It’s all very soft and warm, but the song gradually builds into a big ol’ fireworks display, complete with horns, drums and one heck of a set of lungs from Stevenson. She can belt it out when needed. “Holy Ghost!” is a comedown by comparison, perhaps intentionally.

“Gathering and Leaping,” the lone B-side track, opens with experimental feedback before settling into more country-ish territory, complete with accordion and violin. It’s charming and peppy. The same could be said for the seven-inch overall.

STREAM

'Between Resistance and Community: The Long Island DIY Punk Scene'

In order to enjoy Between Resistance and Community: The Long Island DIY Punk Scene, certain concessions need to be made. Yeah, you get early live footage of Latterman and On the Might of Princes, but that means hearing some of their half-baked ideas about what punk means circa their teenage years. And if there’s one thing kids are good at, it’s ruining punk rock for everyone.

But more on that later. Resistance succeeds in documenting the thoughts and hopes of a youthful scene. At the risk of injecting myself too much into the review, it reminds me of the semi-defunct hardcore scene here in Lansdale, Pa. We had the same late night diner conversations about DIY. We hosted shows anywhere and everywhere and tried to help out touring bands. Our breakout stars were the Wonder Years and CDC, for whatever that’s worth. And just like in Resistance, our “scene” died for the same reasons: the ones with all the passion and know-how got older and moved to the city, and no one from the next generation really moved in to fill the gap left behind. It is on this level that Resistance hits hard: Set aside that it’s about people who wound up in amazing bands like Latterman and Bridge and Tunnel, and this doc could be about any suburban punk rock oasis. That’s pure nostalgic gold, but it also holds up a mirror to scene politics.

Just as in Lansdale, women are either put down or ignored altogether in Long Island, something the filmmakers try to rectify in the special features section but don’t fully explore. Then again, maybe that’s a story on to itself rather than a subplot. Somebody adapt Cinderella’s Big Score for film, stat. There’s also something hypocritical and naïve about watching kids with disposable incomes and indulgent parents rant about how we need to break free of capitalism, and the film’s attempts to show how these supposed revolutionaries live DIY (Kickball in parking lots! Stealing electricity from corporate buildings and violating noise laws!) fail to present a sustainable model.

The kids overreach a bit, but they do some good, like when a few folks set up a food donation service. That’s cool. Also, the shows look hella fun. Can you imagine hearing “For Someone So Easy Going, You Sure Wear Pants A Lot” like right after it was written? Resistance captures moments like that. It also boasts some solid tour footage, as Latterman, On the Might of Princes and the Insurgent encounter just about everything that can go wrong on the road (abusive cops, busted vans and medical bills).

Perhaps the documentary’s biggest strength and weakness is that it captures its subject too accurately. The live footage is of a surprisingly good quality, but interviews about societal ills come off as oversimplified. That’s what needs to be conceded, though. These are just kids. Their opinions can be very hard, even borderline fascist, like when On the Might of Princes takes shit for signing to an indie label. But they still formed a cohesive music scene, gave touring acts a place to stay and took every chance they had to fight for art. The results weren’t perfect, but they’re still commendable.

Also Matt Canino has a normal haircut here. He cleans up nice.

Between Resistance & Community: The Long Island DIY Punk Community from Joe Biel on Vimeo.

Assholeparade - 'Welcome Fucking Home'

I just wanted to say upfront that Assholeparade’s Welcome Fucking Home seven-inch contains seven songs. When listening to it, I picked out maybe three. Then I remembered that old story about how filmmakers had to slow down Bruce Lee’s fight scenes so audiences could see his punches and switched my record player from the 45 rpm setting to 33 1/3. Oh hey, look. “Soldiers IV” really is a separate song from “Lesson One.”

The A side is just one continuous butt-whooping. The band rips through one rapid fire hardcore jam after another. The P side (see what they did there?) slows down for a bit with “Much Preesh” – the guitars are slower, more ominous – before ratcheting back up with the seconds-long “Freedom Fighters.” The whole thing is pretty blistering, covering topics, if you can pick out the lyrics, about violence and poverty. Good times.