TREMBLE WITH A SIGH.

I was planning on doing a more obscure post again but my girlfriend is blasting out RIDE's nowhere at full volume right now so I couldn't resist. Sometimes, most times really, I'd pick this over 'loveless' as the ultimate shoegaze record. Like millions of confused kids before me I heard 'vapour trail' and was sold instantly. Hearing it today still takes me back to a time when going out meant staying in and watch mtv till 4am. When I first saw that video half asleep and half dead a term like dream pop actually made sense. Makes me want to hug lonely people when I'm alone. In a scene that celebrates itself and EP's only RIDE managed to release an LP that's actually considered worthwhile even though the EP's are, naturally, better*. Nowhere is highlight after highlight. Perfect mixtape material. 'Dreams burn down' is insane. It crushes your skull just to stuff it with happy thoughts. So heavy and yet so much comfort comes from it. Maybe that's the main thing I'm missing from MBV records, the whole soothing bit I need from all music in general. Anywho, since I consider this to be a staple that belongs in everyone's record collection and since it's still very much available I won't be uploading this baby but I suggest you to pick this one up. Big ass chains like Saturn and Fnac are selling it for real cheap these days.

Peace.


*I don't have the time nor the money nor the knowledge to track down every praised shoegaze single out there so instead I spend my cash on discount-priced compact discs that are considered lackluster. It's a way of life.

GUESS I'VE GOT MY FEET IN THE SKY.

Bands are just bands and music's just music but every once in a while a song comes forth and tears itself from all conventions and definitions and whatnots to become as timeless as the sun and the moon and most things inbetween. The kind of song that lets star crossed lovers relief in a sea of fuzzy harmonies, swirling on forevermore. DROP NINETEENS did something what most of their UK peers couldn't. They distilled beauty from the endless yet shortlived reverb we call shoegaze and even though I'm a sucker for endless yet shortlived reverb myself there's actually very few songs, let alone bands, left to remind us of how great this could've been (bar the usual suspects that is). Since I'm a sucker for themes as well I'll try and dig up some other gems from the era in the upcoming weeks just so I could dub this shoegazing month at the W&S HQ's. But in addition to the previously mentioned reason of quantity over quality I'm also a very lazy person. Fucked from the outset. Just like this band.

Even though the LP doesn't live up to winona's promise and meets the required endless reverb standard instead I've uploaded it anyway. RIP extrazone.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nxnzt0nmmfz

Peace.

CLASSIC.

THE STARS ARE THE GREATEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN.

Sometimes I need a swift kick in the ass for not appreciating this band as much as I should and sometimes I should just lay my head in a pillow of grass and be overwhelmed by the beauty and the wonder. It's not that I don't love this band, it's just that I'm not fully aware of that fact just yet. As if somebody should first steal all my R.E.M. records in order for me to realize what I really had. I actually sold my first Green copy because it didn't seem all too helpful in getting me through a world of shit and it didn't really seem like a step up from the singles I already knew. I missed the fuck out of it as soon as I let go, though. All of a sudden it did make sense and the songs popped up in my head and I just wanted things to be as they were. I missed the warmth of the artwork and the warmth of the songs. I wanted to go out in the woods and sneak into a cabin and use this as a blanket when the sun makes its last attempt at breaking through and holding on to trees of a thousand years. Something as timeless as this deserves to be cherished but I'm too much of a goon to fully get that point across. One piece of advice though, if you ever have a few days off of whatever it is you're doing you should just take your time to work your way through this band's career and discover the treasures that are hidden under the hugeness of their back catalogue. There's a lot to be found and it's definitely worth the effort, I swear.

Peace.

ANOTHER LOW LIT MEMORY

Except for the neon sign which didn't come into play till years later my make believe hideout looked a lot like this when I was still a kid. Breakups weren't exactly an issue since I didn't ponder about girls too much in those days but I'm pretty sure that loneliness in general is an all ages ordeal. Maybe it was just me and all the choices I've made but I must've been a boring kid due to the social retardness that seemed to be my shtick ever since I started to mingle. Seeing how I'm the world's most repetitive blogger today not much has changed. I just wanted to point out though that in spite of the heat it's been a real good summer if you're into deep blueish stuff that stretches out for miles and miles and way over your head. At this time of year 9pm bike rides definitely deliver after a humid day. I would also like to establish once more to all five of my followers and possible other readers that poppunk still has that special in my heart right next to my GF, my memories and Regi ca. 2002. God, it's so hot right now.


Peace.

AND SOMEWHERE IN THE NORTH-WOODS DARKNESS...

Some five years ago an old lady bought a box of junk at a Michigan yard sale. When unpacking her junk at home she bumped into an 8mm film with a tag that said “GABLE CASE #MPO41177-1”. After finally obtaining a projector she seemed a bit shaken by what she saw on the film so she passed it on to local radio DJ Steve Cook who, in that area, is also known as the creator of the Michigan dogman song and a somewhat questionable character. He somehow obtained the rights to the film, had it examined by ‘experts’ and just put it up on youtube when those ‘experts’ couldn’t come up with anything conclusive. The film caused quite a stir in crypto circles and was taken offline again all in the span of a couple of weeks somewhere in mid-2007. I missed the boat on this one the first time around but luckily for me the film made a huge comeback a month or so ago when somebody uploaded the full version on youtube. Fox news picked up on it and all of a sudden thousands of theories as well as a new piece of film (gable film part deux) started to pop up all over the world wide paranormal web. Despite the shakiness of the back story and the pretty big Blair Witch vibe which I already find quite charming the film itself is actually really cool. Whereas the first one just depicts the attack the full version added a lot of background to the original. The first few minutes show random footage that seems pretty typical for a kid that just got his hands on his first camera. A lumberjack family doing their lumberjack business. Fooling around on snow scooters, chopping some wood, fixing their Ford pick up truck and rocking more flannel and sketchy haircuts than a 1991 grunge vid. If not actually shot in the seventies it’s clearly intended to look that way. All items stem from that era and if this really is a hoax then somebody went well out of his way in obtaining all this stuff and was actually clever enough not to make any mistakes in that department since it all seems to add up. Things really start to get going when this kid decides to take his camera out on a little roadtrip and appears to be looking for something. You briefly see him filming himself in the side view mirror before he spots something unusual. This is sort of unnoticeable when played at regular speed but somebody blew up the frame and it shows a human type of being doing some sort of stretch-out in a field. A lot of shaking ensues and the person holding the camera, could be the driver at this point, gets out and films the following: for half a second it looks like a person crawling on all fours in a bear suit or something and a human leg can actually be seen very briefly. As it’s moving sideways, keeping an eye on the guy that’s filming, it’s sort of looks like the gait of a silverback gorilla and when the beast decides to make its move it does so in a way that makes it look impossible for a human in a suit to pull off. At one point it actually leaps over a log or a trunk and whilst in the air it seems to be morphing into a raging bull. Some more shaking follows which probably means this dude is making a run for it and the last thing you see of the creature is a canine snout taking a bite at the camera. That last shot is so over the top it almost seems like it’s added for dramatic effect but there’s some weird shit happening nonetheless if you open up your mind to this type of stuff. As far as theories go, some claim it’s the family dog running around wearing one of those bear rugs you put in front of your fireplace, others say it might actually be a werewolf due to the morphing thing that seems to be going on. If this is fake I’d go with CGI as I can’t really think of any other way to hoax this or maybe somebody tampered with the footage of an actual bear attack. For now I’ll just say that this was one of the coolest hoaxes in a long long time but as with any other paranormal case we’ll never really know what did or didn’t happen. And that, my dear friends, is the life and death of cryptozoology.


Peace.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.

It’s like when I close my eyes and I can still see everything I want to see. As if life itself becomes something tangible and is being boxed and crammed inside my bewildered head and my mind starts playing all these tricks and starts pulling all these strings. I grow a heart and a pulse and it collapses walls and I’m out in the open, following power lines. I can feel the electricity as I’m tagging all the streetlights across this town and across the country and straight into the real world. I can see the real world. I can see it upside down. Sometimes prettier and sometimes uglier than reality really wants me to believe. I can still see all the signs flickering on and off. Sometimes slower and sometimes faster than reality wants me to believe. I can still see a life that’s miles away from mine without there being any connection whatsoever. It’s all just a misunderstanding and it’s all just really easy to unravel but courageous people rarely breathe and I breathe rather heavily when I sleep and when I dream and when I’m wide awake in the faintest morning after sun. Nightlife defragments me and I always make the same mistakes. A billion pieces left wherever I go with hopes of someone tracking me down and I end up finding myself scattered across the floor. A veil of nothingness covering hundreds of non-plussed kids out in the streets that are supposed to be familiar but never shake the feeling of being lost. When I open my eyes I see cars spun out of control hugging telephone poles and it’s a lifestyle I’d love to call my own. Fuck me for holding out and fuck you for holding in.

BUT I DON'T WANNA WASTE THIS WISH.

I haven’t bought a twelve inch slab of vinyl in ages but I bumped into KNAPSACK’s Silver Sweepstakes LP last weekend and got pretty stoked. I’ve known this band for so long now and this was actually the first time I came across some of their recorded output irl. I paid a tenner, which is way over my usual price for flea market finds, and went home with a record still shrink wrapped yet worn out by years spent in a curver box. The chances of this ever getting played are slim to none though. Locating a record player in my room is like one of those where’s Wally drawings and I have a digital copy anyways so I’ll just leave this with all my other stuff and know it’s there somewhere in my room or in my house or in my life whenever that digital copy is doing its digital rounds. Fans of SAMIAM/good music; click and rejoice.

I also picked up Henry Poole Was Here (or A Perfect Day For An Imperfect Man as it appears to be called over here) and thoroughly enjoyed it. The feeling of watching your former self go to the places you’ve come to fear the most is fully backed. You get nothing out of it but it passes the time and what else are you supposed to do on hot summer days or cold winter nights?


Peace.

COUNT THE PAGES TORN AWAY.

Last Monday, when I was on my way to work in the wee hours, I saw a rabbit getting caught in a headlight. Then the next day, about 24 hours later, I saw a person being caught in an ambulance. Both might be dead by now. This week’s soundtrack to the 5 am eeriness was carefully selected by myself and consisted of LED ZEP’s Achilles Last Stand, AYWKUBTTOD’s Source Tags And Codes and large chunks PORTER HALL’s Everything I Know Is Stolen. The latter is a record I tend to dig up every couple of months ‘cause songs from it get stuck in my head on a real consistent basis. This band hailed from Alberta, home of the Albertosaurus, and they sorta remind me of the stuff JIMMY EAT WORLD did way back when Tom Linton was still singing lead(singles comp ftw). The vocals on Everything I Know are a bit harsher and gruffier and their sound also has a slight Midwest tinge to it so they basically meet all your nineties emo requirements. Hooks are catchy as hell but somehow no one ever got hooked besides me and that guy from Dead Serious Rex of classic NYHC reissue fame. Still no clue as to why he decided to put this out as it took the band well over a year to record and another year to find a label and, posthumously, get it out. It’s just really weird they couldn’t even get the attention of any of the billion smaller indie labels out there. Anyways, I checked and it’s no longer up on the DS webstore so the link I’m posting might actually be legit. Plus I got this as a freebie myself anyway when I still visited the Good Life office more regularly. It was either this or the ENEMY OF THE SUN EP.

Online home of the revamped band:
http://www.myspace.com/porterhallisrad

Everything I Know Is Stolen:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=6ed66947fcef4c6bd2db6fb9a8902bda


Peace.

I'M IN AN AWFUL STATE, IT'S GETTING LATE...

Pls describe your sound to those who have not heard (of) you.
Hardcore Punk Rock: Heavy, Raw, Melodic. Our songwriting isn't formulaic and we don't rely on shitty mosh parts to carry our songs. We dig bands like black flag, unbroken, husker du, buzzcocks, descendents and tragedy.
How did you feel about going from martyr rex to deathwish inc? Did it open new doors for you guys. And how do you feel about the efforts from the european front (reflections)?
It has definitely opened doors for us. Martyr quickly became too small for us...not enough distribution, money, time or resources. We needed a label that can work as hard as we are working. We've always been pleased with Reflections work for our band and they are great people to work with.
I saw you on your first euro tour in ghent playing for about 50 people and no crowd reaction whatsoever but pics of other shows on that tour showed the kids going berserk. How does it feel playing for an indifferent crowd one night and get the most awesome response on the next?
Playing for an "indifferent" crowd sucks. Playing to a crowd that isn't going crazy is ok as long as people are willing to come up front and you can feel a connection with the crowd. But obviously the best is when kids are losing their minds. On the best nights it's like a religious experience.
The new record seems to deal with growing pains and not having much of a future.

I think that is a pretty narrow way of looking at it. It's a record about embracing your past, who you are and where you come from. It's about being alienated but not defeated. It's about having heart and soul in heartless and souless times.
You have new merch referring to ramones, skinheads and rimbaud and you have a song called the outsiders. How do these 4 things influence you and in what way?
Well the ramones are the original american punkers...the first to play that hard and fast and play a ton of shows all over the country...a strong work ethic and uncompromising. I wrote that song cause we were out on the road carrying on that tradition in our own way while The Ramones were dying. We will never have the importance that they had...but our dreams were coming true while theirs were coming to a close so i wrote that song. The song "martin atchet" on the new record is based on a fictional skinhead character from the graphic novel "SKIN". I've had a fascination with skinheads since i started seeing them at shows when i was 16 or so. I think that skinhead is the coolest youth subculture of all time...from the style to the music. There was a post on the internet asking if we were nazis. If you equate skinheads with Racism, Fascism, Etc....please do some research. Arthur Rimbaud was a french poet who wrote a harrowing epic poem called "A Season In Hell" Just read it. Whether by birth, or by choice, if your life revolves are hardcore & punk rock then you are an outsider. Stay gold, ponyboy.

Peace.

MY NIGHTMARE HAS COME TRUE.

Songs about a very young Zooey Deschanel having issues, rehashed VANDALS riffs, some minor attempts at social commentary, blatantly unfunny attempts at parody, Davey Havok backings (Ixnay leftover) and a nice slew of awesome punk rock anthems and singalong choruses. The pros definitely weigh out the cons but it’s those few cons that might put you off of this record. I made the mistake of dismissing THE OFFSPRING on account of a few dreadful singles that sounded unclever at best when I first heard them as a kid but somehow the bands I loathed for being immature in those days are now the staples on my iPod/creative zen. For years I didn’t think much of this band until Smash hauled me into to their back catalogue and I realized that I had been fooled by those few dreadful singles. I’ve always felt that Smash had a harder and more altrockish sound than its Epitaph peers and it deserves every bit of praise it gets as one of the key albums of the alternative nineties but Americana, as well as Ixnay, shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to good songwriting. Both records are chockfull of punk rock tunes that, after some time spent ripening in the Californian sun, range from highly enjoyable to fucking amazing. The songs that gave Americana its multi-platinum status are the ones that could be considered filler but I guess they’ve served their purpose and in the end Pretty Fly and Why Don’t You Get A Job are the only ones I ever skip due to the MTV overdose of ’98. I’m actually thinking about giving Conspiracy Of One a shot as well even though the artwork is horrid (unlike Americana) and Original Prankster isn’t exactly Redman’s finest hour (a Blackout! post from my behalf is an accident waiting to happen). I’d also like to point out that in No Brakes it sounds as if Dexter Holland is singing “no braids” which, given his ongoing descent into the realm of sketchy hairdo’s, struck me as quite funny. I’m a geek.


On a completely unrelated note; this week’s best reads include:
-EVERYBODY GETS HURT int in Double Rabies Ish Six. “I was creepy-crawling across the floor and this big German guy just stepped on my back like a fucking bug.”
-Three Men Seeking Monsters, an account of cryptidhunting whilst travelling on an unhealthy diet of RAMONES, SEX PISTOLS and BLINK 182. Is supposedly being made into a movie, Jon Heder was involved but I’m not sure if he still is.
-I’m also in the process of rounding up The Mothman Prophecies (of underrated movie starring Richard Gere fame) and I’ve already learned that there’s way more to the MIB-phenomenon than Will Smith in a fancy suit. Expect some actual book reviews on here sooner or later or never.

Peace.

WATER WATER WATER.

Already painfully confronted by the fact that Conor Oberst was my age when he wrote and recorded BRIGHT EYES' acclaimed Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground record he also figured he could do a little band on the side that ended up being just as brilliant. Way to make me look like a fool at 22. DESAPARECIDOS was incepted as a way to voice his opinions on suburban life in America (the outcome's negative) and released one record called Read Music/Speak Music. They were around for about a year or two, took their cues from the revolution summer bands and toured with JIMMY EAT WORLD. Perfect career. Toy Machine meets post-hardcore. Have a peek.


Peace.

I CAN SEE DEATH IN YOUR EYES.

DOWNER could have been a nineties gem. They had everything going for them, the name, their HELMET meets TOOL approach, some cool Pushead artwork and a deal with roadrunner records. Pretty much all the ingredients to become one of those semi-legendary post-hardcore acts that still have cult followings in certain circles. You’d think they’d be set after touring the states with EARTH CRISIS (Destroy The Machines-era) and a spot on lollapalooza but due to a lot of mishap they didn’t release this until years later, in 2001, and at a time when Roadrunner was too busy with putting out new records for bigger bands like SLIPKNOT (Iowa), FEAR FACTORY (digimortal) and SEPULTURA (nation). As a result, DOWNER received very little publicity and ended up being disillusioned one more time before finally calling it quits shortly after this eponymous debut came out. The only form of promotion they got besides a video for Last Time were numerous spots on those samplers that seemed to come with every heavy metal mag out there and that’s pretty much how I got into them as well. Ironically, I bought those magazines to keep myself updated on those bigger bands but I guess I cared enough to dig a little deeper and I still do. The sampler that initially got me into DOWNER (as well as GLASSJAW) may have vanished into the fog of time and it would take me over half a decade to finally score an actual copy of their record but this band still holds up so fucking well. If you like your post-hardcore metallic and topped off with James Maynard Keenan-styled vocals this is definitely right up your alley. So good…


http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ndbmtnmj5zm


Peace.

FUCK YOU TO EVERYBODY

Legend goes that is the first full length ever on VAGRANT records so you’d except this to be a staple in the record collection of anyone who has a slightly emo-tinged taste in music but for some reason it really isn’t all that talked about. This came out hot on the heels of JERSEY’S BEST DANCERS and it damn well shows. From the semi-awkward song titles to the undecipherable semi-clean vocals with semi-ironic into semi-emotional lyrics this is about as identical a LIFETIME rip off can get. But respect where respect is due, BOXER is very enthusiastic in their presentation of Yemin leftovers and they pull it off fairly well. Definitely well enough for me to listen to this on a semi-regular basis. I remember buying a really cheap copy in a FREE RECORD SHOP of all places but I sold that one because I was under the assumption that I’d bought an album by that shitty band that probably took their name from this record. When I started my whole VAGRANT/LIFETIME worshipping thingy I realized I’d let go of a pretty cool gem but I’m very persistent and I managed to come across another copy somewhere on a flea market in Bruges. It was like one euro or something and I remember scoring the DMD ep as well. Bargains rule. Anyways, you won’t really find this that often and I’m pretty sure it’s out of print but it’s up for grabs here. Worth the twenty-something megabytes/minutes if you dig this type of stuff. Also, if you’re into random nerdy info I should mention that this was produced by Trever Keith aka one of the coolest guys in punk rock ever. People that could possibly dig this are the same people I would possibly hang out with.

peace.

WHEN THE WORLD CAVES IN...

Somewhat pretentious and overly emotional. Story of my life. Many bands hit home on the latter whilst safely avoiding the first. But It’s OK to go all the way, you know. Just drag those songs through miles of whatever it is kids have been dreaming about for centuries and always keep in mind that random photography is a must. It just might work and it just might warrant a 10-year anniversary tour I’m bound to miss out on. The soundtrack to about a million summers bridging high school and college, when all your lifelong friends move into the sadder parts of your brain and the hooking up on an irregular basis fuels your fear of a future ever so bright. First stars and faintest of snow may not seem as mature in hindsight but it’ll do if you screw up your eyes and the screwed up kid from way back when is staring back at you again. Just make sure you snap out of it when you’re starting to wait for a call that’s long overdue. I cared back then and I still care now and I guess I will always do so. I’m just a very emotional, somewhat pretentious guy.

Peace.

GOTTA TRY, GOTTA FIGHT, GOTTA NEVER QUIT...

When springtime came in the shaky year that was 2003 blue skies and broken hearts were stretching all over Paris as if it was the only place that could really comfort me in the whole wide world. I hadn’t been to many places and bleak romance had never really been my share but roaming those streets was such an eye-opener, a culmination of all things that you know you’ll miss after high school. I saw the weirdest flick ever at Centre Pompidou and got poked by some weird foreigners who thought I was part of the act, I got high on sugar and fell into the tub that kept our pubes and Heinekens cold when hiding from a teacher, there were fake drug transactions, hotel room raids by a Marseille gang I don’t really wish to ever encounter again and we also managed to perfect the ancient game of tossing a bra from one hotelroom window to another. I wish I could remember everything a bit more vividly but all these trips down memory lane have gotten the best of me and all the details.

Anyway, what I still remember the most from that era is how concerned the teachers were about me. Looking back I guess they were just scared that I’d show up at school one day and blow their heads off ‘cause they definitely went out of their way to prevent that from happening. I always had to go on these little talks about drugs and depression and they always granted me privileges they thought would help me get through life a bit better. Whenever I wanted some time off from field trips I just asked and they would let me go out on my own while everyone else had to stay together for whatever tour they were doing. That was pretty awesome I guess but I didn’t think it would work in a metropolis that has about 10 million people ready to run me over with their twingo’s, an event that would most certainly screw said teachers over both insurance –and conscience-wise… I guess they thought the risk of that happening was minimal when they decided to let me stroll down the Champs Elysees on my own. I already had the whole thing planned out perfectly back home. I pretty much survived the entire weekend on Mickey D’s 95c hamburgers (meat is murder, people) just so I could spend the majority of my pocket money on records. In order to be able to spend that money I had to come up with an excuse that pretty much went like “Ey yo, I’m gonna go ahead to the Virgin Megastore and I’ll meet you guys down there.” Ferris Bueller ain’t got shit on me.

Up till that point, the Virgin Megastore was the wildest place I’d ever been to. They had actual copies of all the records I had read about online. I had this whole wantlist in my head that just vaporized upon entering the punk/hardcore section. Making a selection was a task not even God Himself would be up to but I fucking managed. The crop: JANE DOE, to which I’ll probably dedicate an entire fanzine at one point in my life, JUPITER, to which I’ll probably dedicate an entire fanzine at one point in my life and FUEL FOR THE HATE GAME which I was just listening to right before typing this out. The price: 56 EUR. Nowadays I have enough sources to score about 30 records for that kind of money but I still think it was worth every goddamn cent.

I could’ve done this post about the other two records as well but I'm already doing two entire fanzines on those and it had been a while since I listened to HWM but I just did a sec ago and they still hold up so well. Also, they were the only band I had properly checked out prior to my Virgin Megastore revelation as opposed to CONVERGE and CAVE IN who were only just myths to me until then. But the CAUTION record had been on constant rotation and I was still figuring that one out when FUEL FOR THE HATE GAME ultimately pulled me into lifelong HWM loveage. You can’t put a price on that and you just can’t trade in all of those wonderfully depressing memories that come along with it. I survived and so did my teachers so I guess it’s all good…


Peace.