Static Friction 5

So here is Static Friction 5. I've been avoiding the uploading.

This new mix is a good mix, including some soft wimpy stuff and some louder stuff, too. Reviewing this list, it appears this is a fairly poppy mix this time.
I like blabbering on about music, but I don't know that anyone else likes to read it.
So I will compromise- both a short and a long list.
Take that.

1. Jimmy Eat World: Bleed American.

2. Get Up Kids: Coming Clean.

3. Smashing Pumpkins: I Am One.

4. Down By Law: Independence Day.

5. Replacements: Favorite Thing.

6. Depeche Mode: Fly on the Windscreen.

7. From First to Last: Note to Self.

8. Exploited: Alternative.

9. Jesus and Mary Chain: Between Planets.

10. Guardrail: I Won't Change my Mind This Time.

11. Rainer Maria: The Double Life.

12. Chumbawumba: That's How Grateful We Are (live).

13. Circle Takes the Square: Houdini Logic (remix).

14. Billy Bragg: Walk Away Renee.

15. Canterbury Effect: Rocky Mountain Love Letters.

16. Jawbreaker: Jinx Removing.

17. Circle Jerks: Wild in the Streets

18. Ben Gibbard: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (live acoustic).

19. Consolidated: I Reckon You Should Shut the Fuck Up and Play Some More Music.

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1. Jimmy Eat World: Bleed American. From the Bleed American LP. Was titled as such prior to the 9/11 attacks, changed later to a s/t LP. Very well-marketed and went platinum. Super poppy but great content.

2. Get Up Kids: Coming Clean. From the 4 Minute Mile LP. Mistakenly called 'emo,' this band is a great heart-on-their-sleeve pop punk band. Check out the rest of the album, go see them if they haven't broken up. again.

3. Smashing Pumpkins: I Am One. From Gish. Back when SP was more distortion than catchy. Awesome song from an awesome LP. This was big when Dinosaur Jr got big, too. Remember when MTV played music videos? Remember when 120 minutes on Sunday nights? sigh.
4. Down By Law: Independence Day. From All Scratched Up. A good follow up to punkrockacademyfightsong. DBL recorded a video to this song (?) and then wrote songs later expressing regret for doing so. Very catchy tune, most of their songs are; very well-produced and written punk rock music.
5. Replacements: Favorite Thing. From their Let it Be LP. Very good jangly alternative rock from Minnesota without getting into country or bluegrass. Anyone trying to learn their music better be patient: deceptively difficult.
6. Depeche Mode: Fly on the Windscreen. From Black Celebration. Released in 1986, it was their 5th LP. Ahh, memories. Great early dark-alternative electronica.
7. From First to Last: Note to Self. From the awesomely-titled Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has a Body Count LP.  Most of the post-hardcore music on this tune sounds similar, but I suppose that defines the term "theme."
8. Exploited: Alternative. From Troops of Tomorrow LP released in 1982. Back when punk and hardcore was something to fear. Back when punk rock was expected to have poor production and still be awesome. Unfortunately, back when Wattie of the Exploited is rumored to have been drifting into racist politics. I hope that's not true...
9. Jesus and Mary Chain: Between Planets. From their Automatic LP from 1989. Starting out as heavy distortion in their early days, including using white noise to fill in as background noise, Automatic was rather well produced, and spawned a video or two (I think?), and later the Pixies covered another song from this LP- Head On, and made their own video for that cover song. A great hybrid of electronica and blues.
10. Guardrail: I Won't Change my Mind This Time. From the Non-Doug LP. The title is probably wrong. Ask Steve. To avoid sounding too arrogant, this is my old band and i really liked it despite the hard times during the band's life. This is probably my favorite song we did, written in about 15 minutes.
11. Rainer Maria: The Double Life. From their Long Knives Drawn LP. Great heart-felt indie-pop originally from Madison, Wisconsin.  No longer together, rumors spread that the singer Caithlin De Marrais was going to do solo work, no word as yet. Many of their songs are about interpersonal relationships, which gets tiresome at long intervals, but the songs are so dynamic that this takes a long time to get there.
12. Chumbawumba: That's How Grateful We Are (live). From Showbusiness! LP. Live recording, b/w a speech by Noam Chomsky called Capital Rules. Great classic Chumbawamba before they married electronic sounds and drum machines. Later they did classical English protest songs. Great songs.
13. Circle Takes the Square: Houdini Logic (remix). From their s/t EP. This track features their song over-dubbed by Trigga and Quick, rappers. Their flow is good, and they totally lose their place in the end of the song when CTtS takes off and goes crazy. Awesome.
14. Billy Bragg: Walk Away Renee. From Reaching to the Converted. Solo, as usual, just Mr. Bragg and his guitar. Sweet song about a girl. aww.
15. Canterbury Effect: Rocky Mountain Love Letters. From Exercise in Humility. Saw these guys as a side-stage act at Warped tour a few years ago. Huge acts came through with the tour, NOFX and Thursday and Flogging Molly..... this was my favorite act by far. I was among maybe 6 people watching them play from a trailer. Good god they were awesome. They come from Brazil. Brazil, Indiana, that is.
16. Jawbreaker: Jinx Removing. From 24 Hr Revenge Therapy. I've upped this album before BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME. Blake Schwarzbach before Jets to Brazil. Awkward chords, awkward timing, very abstract lyrics throughout. Artsy indie pop unafraid to stand up to punk rock elite.
17. Circle Jerks: Wild in the Streets. from the LP of the same name. Great song for the summer. Think of the Iran riots, but with the rioters not really interested in social justice, just the neato riot part. California punk from the early 80s. Punk rock that couldn't care less about the "Anarchy in the UK" punk from across the pond.
18. Ben Gibbard: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (live acoustic). Yes, a Cindi Lauper cover. Live acoustic cover from a live bootleg recording I have. In case you aren't familiar with the name, Mr. Gibbard is the singer/guitarist from Deathcab for Cutie.
19. Consolidated: I Reckon You Should Shut the Fuck Up and Play Some More Music. From Business of Punishment LP.  While this is a track from the album, the band records audience comments from set-up microphones in the crowd; this is technically not the band. Great uber- political industrial music. They don't allow dancing at their shows, or so the rumors go- kinda silly.

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Static Friction 5 is up. As they say in French,  Il est ici!"

Static Friction 4

Yowza. Mix number 4 is like totally like here. hold the applause. sigh.

for both of my loyal readers, this is a pretty sweet mix. I like it.

1. Fluf: Degrader
2. mightaswell: Chapter 2
3. Saosin: I Wanna Hear Another Fast Song
4. Scarlet Failsafe: Circadian Rhythms
5. Avail: West Wye
6. Mc Chris: Check the Ring, Yo
7. Samiam: Storm Clouds
8. Screeching Weasel: Cool Kids
9. Murphy's Law: Somebody's Gonna Get Get Their Head Kicked In
10. Midnight Oil: Beds Are Burning
11. Mod 13: Head On
12. Bad Religion: The Voice of god is Government
13. Blink 182: M&M's
14. Mojo Nixon: Don Henley Must Die
15. Naked Raygun: Last Call
16. Mirah: Murphy Bed
17. Black Flag: Nervous Breakdown
18. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes: Uptown Girl

All sorts of useless music info available if you want it about these bands, songs, and albums that they came from is available, just let me know if'n yer curious.

i'm out. word.

Static Friction 4 is available now. 

Static Friction 3

So um, yeh. So here's number 3. This has a lot of favorites. I have heard that 2 folks have had issues opening and playing files. I tried to eliminate separate files for bands, and just have the tracks listed. Let me know if you have problems opening the files.

1. Gary Jules Mad World
   
2. Comeback Kid Wake the Dead
   
3. Husker Du It's Not Funny Anymore
   
4. Avail West Wye
   
5. Guardrail I Won't Change My Mind
   
6. Desaparecidos Man and Wife (the Latter)
   
7. Jawbreaker Do You Still Hate Me?
   
8. Lawrence Arms Light Breathing (Me and Martha Plimpton in a Fancy Elevator)
   
9. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien Sleepin' on My Couch
   
10. Brand New Seventy Times Seven
    
11. Dead Milkmen Bitchin' Camaro
    
12. Archers of Loaf Wrong (live)
    
13. Jurassic 5 Swingset
    
14. Blatz Homemade Speed
    
15. Breakfast Club Letter to Mr. Vernon
    
16. Johnny Cash One
    
17. Leftover Crack Rock the 40oz
    
18. Biz Markie Spring Again

So there's Static Friction3; without the wordy descriptions.
Gimme feedback; let me know what's up.

Static Friction can be found right here.

Static Friction 2

So here is mix number two.

As I type this, there have been no comments or feedback at all for the first mix. So this mix compilation idea may be short lived, as it is time consuming.

This mix contains a decent variety of music, from some screechy metal-influenced screamo to mopey alternative folk to acoustic versions.

• The Cure: Cut Here (acoustic version). Not much intorduction needed for The Cure. If you aren't familiar, you've been in your cave too long. I heard this version before the electronic, and i really think this version emphasizes the lyrical content of Robert Smith. From Hits.
  
  
• Alexisonfire .44 Calibre Lover Letter. Fantastic metal-influenced screamo. They've become a bit poppy and moved toward crappy nu-metal lately, but this is the best song off of their self-titled album.  Great build-ups, breaks, and call-and-answer vocals; with a great twist- one is trained alto and singy, and the other is gravelly and terse. A great blend.
  
  
• Gunmoll Count the Needle Why do so many of the great bands have to split up? Crimony! This band released one or two great LPs and an EP, then dissolved. The lead singer/guitarist formed another band In the Red(In the Red's stuff is available at RatPatrol's MySpace site). Great crescendos and decrescendos in this one. I'm guilty of liking crescendos in songs, and use of the "f" word. This song has both. Gravelly yet discernible vocals, great post-hardcore tone to this pr track. Very indicative of the sound of Gainesville (Florida) punk. From No Idea Records.
  
  
• Circle Takes the Square Crowquill. Another noisy track, very gravelly vocals complimenting clean male and female vocals. CTtS is a Georgian experimental screamo band. This track comes from their record  As the Roots Undo. They even have a song with Whoudini- yes, the 80s rapper raps over one of their tracks. It's awesome. I might include that on future mixes.
  
  
• Bright Eyes Padraic My Prince. Bright Eyes, mainly the work of singer/guitarist/folk music darling Conner Oberst, came into some notoriety on The Tonight Show about a year back when he sang "When the President Talks to God" on the air, blasting George Bush. Bright Eyes has been producing music for years. From my understanding, he recorded a few albums in his living room with is father recording. The track is Oberst emoting (no surprise) about his (fictional?) brother who died in a bathtub when he was just an infant. From Letting Off the Happiness.
  
  
• Cap'n Jazz Take on Me: Yes, another cover version of the 80s hit by A-Ha. Many bands have covered this track since the original made history with it's sketching-comes-to-life video. I have heard a few Ska covers, too. Cap'n Jazz is a band that came out of the late-90s Chicago scene, burning bright and fast, later to split and morph into other bands such as The Promise Ring, Joan of Arc, Owls, and others. This is from Analphabetapolothology.
  
  
• Clash Career Opportunities: The Clash need little introduction. Early punk rock from across the pond, one of the first to get signed by the majors, targets of heavy criticism from Crass, etc. This track is timely in the current economics state. From their S/T LP. If you don't somehow already have this, shame your self, then shame your self again. Then buy it here.
  
  
• Elvis Costello This Year's Girl: Another artist who needs little introduction. Born Declan McMannis, Mr. Costello has been involved with music since the 1970s. He produced The Specials first S/T LP, made a large number of LPs in various music stylings, many projects with other great artists. I got this track from Girls Girls Girls, a compilation of Elvis's earlier recordings. Sigh. Swoon.
  
  
• Descendents Silly Girl: If there is anyone who argues against the idea that the Descendents are the seminal pop-punk band, that they some how aren't directly responsible for almost all bubble-gum pop-punk music out today, poke their ears out. They don't deserve their ears with that kind of attitude. Before Green Day and Blink 182, before you knock-offs like Sum-41 and Good Charlotte, The Descendents had already released a number of LPs, toured the entire universe, and broke up. Later the Descendents would change singers (from Milo to Chad) and rename themselves as "All." All is a concept from The Descendents last album, implying living life on "11." Silly Girl is a fantastic song about love lost and found over the course of a Summer. Find the LP I Don't Want to Grow Up.
  
  
• Forget Cassettes Like Tiny Swords: Forget Cassettes, as of when I picked up the LP Instruments of Action were a 2 piece band, playing bass, guitar, drums, and singing, and piano, I think. Like Tiny Swords is a great song. Indie-Emo vocals and lyrics, paired-down music and production- it even sounds dirty and grungy like old garage-bands. The singer has a fantastic raspy voice with a hint of cuteness that I can't seem to get enough of. yowza.
  
  
• Fatlip What's Up Fatlip?:Fatlip is one of the artists in the Jurassic 5 camp; a highly skilled smooth new-school hip hop group who made a name for themselves in the early 2000s. This track is from The Loneliest Punk, a solo LP. Good, silly rhymes and flows, including a recording of Fatlip humming and beat-boxing into a voice mail about a beat he wanted to try out.
  
  
• Fluf Degrader Anyone familiar with the "Supercollider/Superconductor" skate video from the 90s will likely remember this track. Pre-Grunge pop punk from California. Fluf was one of a few musical project from O, famous in the world of skateboard photography. The other musical project of his that suffered an equally short-lived life was Olivelawn. Both bands sound similar, so if you like this track, you'd likely most all of O's stuff. Check out Mangravy.
  
  
• Dashboard Confessional This Bitter Pill: This LP, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, launched Chris Carrabba into fame. Almost everything on this album is acoustic, and mostly only him and his guitar. DC was the new project for Carabba after parting ways with Further Seems Forever, an alternative rock band that continues with a new, really bad, singer. Anyway, DC became darlings of the MTV2 generation and doubtlessly initiated many high school make-out sessions. This track is a soaring emotive tear jerking song about (surprise) a long-lost love. The MTV unplugged set he did sounds like a choir of high school kids singing for him. I'm such a sucker for sing-a-long songs, for heartfelt music, and for acoustic guitar. I swear that if I liked dudes, I would so want to do him. A lot.
  
  
• Down by Law Flower Tattoo: A track so sweet that it hurts your teeth. Great California pop-punk from one of the greats. I first heard this track when I had the hots for a hippie girl I used to work with, so it was very timely. and destiny. yeah. sigh. From punkrockacademyfightsong. According to Epitaph's website, the record is out of print??? Other great tracks on the LP include a great cover of the Procalaimer's 500 Miles.
  
  
• ...and You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead Mach SchauThis band's name sounds like it should be a metal band's name. Awesome. The Secret of Elena's Tomb is an EP by these guys. Heavy, layered guitars, dirty production, talented singing style. I imagine that this is the height that alternative/indie-rock bands can get to. I suppose that if they had a different name, they would already be buttered and squeezed into every radio and video outlet.
  
  
• Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound: I heard someone label these guys as "Springsteen Punk." I laughed at first, but it made sense. It sounds like what Bruce Springsteen would sound like if he had an alternative rock band: non-overdriven guitar distortion, heartfelt lyrics, competent song writing. This is the title track from their '59 Sound album. According to Wikipedia, they have opened for the Boss before, too. Ha. Surprisingly good music from New Jersey. The song is great.
  
  
• Ataris The Boys of Summer:Another song I always wanted to cover. Scratch that, I did. Back when i was your age (when wooly mammoths walked the earth), I was in a band with a bunch of friends, and we covered this song. poorly. Long live The Sheet Sniffers.
  Anyways, the Ataris do an OK version of this song, turning up the amps, reducing all of the music to barre-chords, and adding a poppy punk drumbeat to carry it along. Think about the original by Don Henley, and then listen to this version and figure out what lyrics were changed. Found on So Long, Astoria.
  
  Static Friction 2 can be found here.
  

Static Friction 1

So here it is. whew.

Static Friction 1 is a decent mix of music including screamo, alternative, punk, and hip hop. Check it out.

1. Ache;Emelie: Green Like Looking Good. Fantastic song from this Indiana outfit. They only released one self-titled LP, and this is my favorite from the LP. They do have an acoustic set on YouTube. Acoustic scream? yep. Good shit. The end of this track repeats "I owe you for everything. For everything, I owe you."
   
2. Alkaline Trio: Bleeder. Everyone's favorite pot-headed misfits-obsessed pretty boys from Chicago. This song was covered by Hot Water Music on the split EP they shared. This is an easy song to play on the guitar. Guys- impress your girlfriends by playing this for her. Aww shucks. The live versions online are terrible. Avoid them. Also from their self-titled LP.
3. Anti-Flag: Die for Your Government. These guys are awesome. I remember seeing them play a backyard show back in the early 90s behind MadFrog in Clifton (called the Bloodstone House at the time). They were a bunch of scrawny kids rockin' out. Awesome shit. They keep getting better. Political slightly-poppy punk.
4. Black Flag: Six Pack. Classic punk from America's first generation of punk. Often associated with hardcore and blues (together? yep), this track is from when Henry Rollins (born Henry Garfield) took over vocals. The cold, hard truth of what beer means to men: "my girlfriend asked which one i like better (beer or her).... i hope the answer won't upset her." Awesome. Gotta have priorities.
5. A Tribe Called Quest: Phony Rappers. Changing gears a bit, this hip hop is from the golden days of positive, intelligent hip hop. Beats, Rhymes, and Life was a commercial success for these guys, and it shows why. The flow is smooth, the beats are smooth, and the feel is smooth. Did i say smooth yet?
6. Bad Manners: Midnight Rider. A cover song from Bad Manners of an Almann Brothers classic. This comes from a sampler put out by Triple X records back in the mid-90s. Triple X had an intersting mix on their roster, from punk to ska to industrial. The CD was purchased from Circle Records on Glenway. RIP. This is a rather well-produced track, from later in the career of Bad Manners.
7. Blacktop Cadence: Sad Passing Shame: Blacktop Cadence is a side project of the boys from Hot Water Music, darlings of the melodic hardcore/post hardcore scene. BC is a bit more subdued, with a different bassist than HWM had. Again, only on LP was released, on No Idea Records. Great heartfelt call-and-answer vocals from Chuck and Chris of HWM.
8. Avengers: We Are the One.  LA punk at it's near-finest. From the Dangerhouse release, this track is a fantastic song. Catchy, fast, repetitive, with a female lead singer- unfortunately not common enough in the punk scene. Later this song would be covered by Shades Apart.
9. Avail: Model. From their first big LP Dixie, this track is about the vanity that even the punk scene was and is still guilty of. Ironic that the notion of "anti-fashion" still produced it's own fashion, fashion police, and elitism. Sad. Avail are one of the giants in underground music, having never sold out to the majors or caved into changing trends and fads in the scene. This puts them on par with Fugazi in this respect. "Bullshit- you got a disease. You follow the trend like the rest of the sheep."
10. 7 Seconds: I See You Found Yourself Another Trophy. From the (only?) leaders of the Reno, Nevada hardcore scene in the early 80s, 7 Seconds continues to tour to this day, putting on awesome live shows like they never quit. This track is from a later LP titled Good to Go, this track calls the men of the punk scene on their shit for collecting girlfriends like trophies to build respect. Wasn't this what we got into this scene for- to get away from misogynist bs like this? sigh.
11. Beastie Boys: Slow and Low. Absolute classic from the gentlemen from NY, before they apologized for writing the song Girls. WTF? From License to Ill. Get it.
12. Ben Gibbard: Photobooth. Ben is the singer for Death Cab for Cutie, and this is a solo acoustic live performance. This is a nice version of Photobooth, without the electronic drums to carry it.  A great bittersweet story of young love. Ah, capricious youth.
13. Atom and His Package:What WE Do on Christmas. A bit hard to follow at times, but funny every time. It's great to hear an artist take themselves so un-seriously. A parody of what Jewish folks do on xmas in a predominately xtian country.
14. Against Me!: Baby, I'm an Anarchist! Against Me! is currently straddling the fence between underground punk legends and media darlings. This is from Reinventing Axl Rose, a great LP with many great singalong punk songs. An interesting mix of non-distorted guitar and scratchy vocals with a group of singers on the "good parts." A great song including references about the Seattle NAFTA riots.
15. Bayside: Poison in my Veins. Whiney emo-indie music. Great sliding vocals and well-produced sound, as is the norm for this band. The singer is a bit much to take at times vocally, but the lyrical contact makes up for the vocal stylings. This comes from the Sirens and Condolences LP.
16. Appleseed Cast: Fight Song. A song about relationship break ups and the fights. Nice play on words. The song is a very well constructed alternative-indie song. It was released through Deep Elm records, a haven for emo, indie, and underground bands. I've had conversations with the owner and he is very dedicated about music. Great guy. This is one of the last great songs i heard on WOXY before they ran out of money and went online-only. Truly a loss. Appleseed cast has many great albums.
17. Blur: Song #2. not much to say but the obligatory "whoo hoo." Fun, fast, bouncy. Pretty vacuous, really, but a fun song.
18. A Planet For Texas: Crimson and Clover: A great punk rock cover version of the Tommy James and the Shondells song from the 1960s. I always wanted someone (or me) to do a pr cover o this song. Check out the "yeahs." Classic in the making.

Find the mix here.

Static Friction Mixes!

So hey. Yeah.
I've been thinking about putting together a batch of new mix tapes. Then it came to me- nobody has a damned cassette tape player anymore. So in order to persevere, i am going to make a set of mix mp3 collections. The name for these mixes will be called "Static Friction" and will be numbered in sequence.
Check the side bar for instructions on opening the files. Feel free to download these as desired.

Each Static Friction mix will  have about an hour of music in mp3 format, all in a zipfile.  These will be freely downloadable from Mediafire.com, an online download site allowing unlimited downloads.

On each post i'll list the tracks (not necessarily in the order they appear on the mixes) with information about each track. Each mp3 file will be named and will include the source album where available. The mixes will have the number in the "comments" box; this window is easy to find in apple iTunes, i don't have a PC at home so i don't know where it might be if you don't use iTunes.

The mixes are all over the place, including blues, ska, hardcore, metal, punk, screamo, alternative, 80s, and more: just like the good old days.

More to come...

Ache;Emelie

Oh my. Ache;Emelie is(was) a post-hardcore band often tagged as "screamo." The "screamo" tag is a bit inaccurate, as the music wasn't as hardcore as those bands typically are. The band hails from the hardcore megalopolis that is Lafeyette Indiana, and according to their PVF space, they have not broken up, but are looking to get enough member back together to release new material and tour again. Here's hoping that happens. Hell, if I lived close enough, I would have already kicked down doors to join them.
They are supposedly working on an acoustic release which should be fantastic.
Screeching vocals, tremendously powerful heartfelt lyrics, distorted guitars, and of course, a violin. They only have a single s/t Ep out, and I found a single elsewhere not on the EP. Not easy to find, as their repertoire of released material is small, but so well worth the find.
Tracks to pay special attention to: "Green Like Looking Good" and "I am Sisyphus."
Members of Ache;Emelie are part of the "Body of Wasps" outfit as far as I can tell.

Track Listing:
1. An Apparition towards Compassionate Living
2. I am Sysiphus
3. Bonaparte's Lung
4. Green Like Looking Good
5. She's Gone Gilligan, and She Took the Professor With Her

Ache;Emelie EP

Ache;Emelie on MySpace
See them play acoustic

Casket Lottery

Casket Lottery were a somewhat low-key band from Kansas City, MO. Started in the late 90's as a side project of KC hardcore band Coalesce, the three-piece band played fantastic Indie-Emo rock. Dynamic noisy-quiet levels, Clean-to-distorted soaring guitar, subdued but very skilled bass guitar work, syncopated drums, and calling-answering vocals added tremendously to the quality. Guitarist Nathan's voice took me a minute to get used to, being thin and boyish at times, but it certainly grew on me. He's a really nice guy, and their shows were great. Numerous tours and new projects have pulled the band members away from the Casket Lottery project in recent years, notably with members of now-defunct Small Brown Bike to form Able Baker Fox.

I have had the pleasure of seeing these boys play in Columbus Ohio a few years back with pals Small Brown Bike, and then later in Chicago (merged with SBB as Able Baker Fox) opening up for scene favorites Hot Water Music.
As Casket Lottery, they released many great recordings, notably this one, "Choose Bronze." Why the two pictures above? The album was released originally with the blue heavy-card stock cover with cut-outs revealing the words "choose bronze," then re-released with the foofy cover later on. One can guess price was a factor in changing the cover.
The title taken from a line in a Shakespeare play, the CD is fantastic. It is an older release of theirs, dating from 1999, released on Second Nature Records. This record label also put out the Able Baker Fox release "Voices."
Tracks to pay special attention to are "Ocean," "Softie," and "Ever Since Sulfur"

Track Listing:
1. Midway
2. Deepset and Longlashed
3. Trust Nolan
4. Softie
5. Ocean
6. Ever Since Sulfur
7. One Trick Pony
8. Everyone Here is Wrong
9. The Matter
10. For When I'm Missing
11.  Home Is...


Choose Bronze

Buy it from InterPunk
But it from Second Nature
Buy it from Artist Direct

7 Seconds: Live: One Plus One

No one should really need an introduction to 7 Seconds. In case you've been hiding under a rock for the last 20+ years and have never heard of them, well,
shame on you.

7 Seconds started in the 1980s in Reno, Nevada as a hardcore band. Many releases and relentless touring made 7 Seconds a staple in the hardcore music scene. The music is political, relentless, powerful and was in many ways a blueprint for American hardcore music of the 1980s. Never one to miss a chance to talk to the kids (see: preach), Kevin Seconds always has something positive to say to the crowd about respecting. In this way, Ian MacAye from Fugazi is very similar to Kevin Seconds- they both want the scene to grow, mature, improve, and get past petty bickering and elitism.
It is both ironic and disappointing that so many straightedge kids latched on to 7 Seconds in their hey day. Don't get me wrong, I spent quite a few years as a straightedge vegan and never did anything stupid like the infamous sXe'rs got attention for- so I know that not everyone was like that. It was just sooo disappointing that enough people were that those who decided not to do drugs etc became so "tough-guy." Wasn't that part of the point of punk to avoid shitty attitudes and tough guys? sigh.
Ah, anyway- I digress.

Live: One Plus One is a live recording (duh) released in 1987. 12 awesome tracks, accurately capturing the energy 7 Seconds puts into every show. I've had the distinct pleasure of seeing 7 Seconds live many times, and somehow the shows never get old, slow, or boring. The live version of "99 Red Balloons" is their cover of the English version of Nena's hit from the 1980s, with snippets from 2 other songs thrown into the mix by the end of the song (bonus points for anyone knowing the non-obvious second song borrowed from at the end). The album will leave you worn out, sweating, and calling out to the band to play one more. The next time they come anywhere near you, do yourself the favor and see them. Any punk veterans will likely have owned this at one point already, but the cassette and vinyl have gotten scratchy with age.

Re-up your music, punx.

Track Lisiting:
1. You Live and Die for Freedom
2. Siren
3. Catching
4. Praise
5. Somebody Help Me Scream
6. Opinion of Feeling
7. Trust
8. Calendar
9. Regress, No Way
10. The Save Ourselves
11. Walk Together, Rock Together
12. 99 Red Balloons

Live:One Plus One

Buy it from Amazon
Buy it from NetSoundMusic

Buy it from the punks at Round Flat Records