Nov. 2, 2011 at 8:05pm with 126 notes
merge2011 releasestimes new vikingcolumbusmidwestpopindieshitgaze
Times New Viking - Dancer Equired. Released April 2011. I’ll be honest, when I left Columbus I stopped paying attention to Columbus bands. Which is a damn shame, because I always liked Times New Viking. I lived in a rowhouse at the corner of N 4th and E Oakland for three years that was a block from the first Columbus Discount Records house. I saw TNV at Bourbon Street and other venues around town a lot, and I always really loved the band. One time, I found myself sitting next to Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore at the bar watching them play. I like inaccessibility and noise, especially on punk records, but this record takes the band in a different direction. This record is poppy and accessible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. Starting the record with the line “we made it through the winter.” Wow, wow, wow. Anyone who’s ever lived through a Midwest winter (or 23) can tell you that that first warm day of the spring is truly like being reborn. Feeling sunshine on your skin for the first time in four months, well, there’s really nothing like it. The rest of the record is strong too, with “Try Harder” stuck in my head all day as I muddle my way through my first semester of graduate school. Hearing a great new (to me) record from a band that makes me miss my home… well, there’s not much like that, either. Music about snow and cold and sitting at the train tracks and drinking whiskey and climbing Indian mounds and $1 beers and playing in basements. That’s what Columbus is all about. That’s what I’m all about. 

Times New Viking - Dancer Equired. Released April 2011.

I’ll be honest, when I left Columbus I stopped paying attention to Columbus bands. Which is a damn shame, because I always liked Times New Viking. I lived in a rowhouse at the corner of N 4th and E Oakland for three years that was a block from the first Columbus Discount Records house. I saw TNV at Bourbon Street and other venues around town a lot, and I always really loved the band. One time, I found myself sitting next to Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore at the bar watching them play. I like inaccessibility and noise, especially on punk records, but this record takes the band in a different direction. This record is poppy and accessible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good.

Starting the record with the line “we made it through the winter.” Wow, wow, wow. Anyone who’s ever lived through a Midwest winter (or 23) can tell you that that first warm day of the spring is truly like being reborn. Feeling sunshine on your skin for the first time in four months, well, there’s really nothing like it. The rest of the record is strong too, with “Try Harder” stuck in my head all day as I muddle my way through my first semester of graduate school.

Hearing a great new (to me) record from a band that makes me miss my home… well, there’s not much like that, either. Music about snow and cold and sitting at the train tracks and drinking whiskey and climbing Indian mounds and $1 beers and playing in basements. That’s what Columbus is all about. That’s what I’m all about. 

Sep. 28, 2011 at 11:08pm with 16 notes
hardcorefemale frontedfeminismpunkriotgrrrl
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]  

DEATHRATS - GIRL STYLE

We’ve been taught to hate one another and we replicate their standards
We cut each other down to size, each of us starved and socialized
I’m sick of the punk boy revolution, its ordinary
When women can support women, that’s something revolutionary
Why lament the loss of our girl style then, when we’re just as angry now
Why do they look backward to Kathleen Hannah, when there are so many of us now
You’re not satisfied, well neither am I
If we’re hating each other, we’re hating ourselves
If we can’t trust each other we can’t trust ourselves

This band fucking slays. Girl fronted DC hardcore about feminism, punk and living in this shitty world. Musically and lyrically on point. Support!

Sep. 22, 2011 at 9:41pm with 12 notes
riotgrrrlbikini killfeminismdiyzinespunk
“

Sarah Dougher, a musician and professor at Portland State University who also teaches at Portland’s Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls, is concerned that the interest in Riot Grrrl she sees today more often takes the form of nostalgic longing for “authentic community” than a practical engagement in radical politics.

“Among people who grew up with the Internet — people who are presented with a gajillion cultural options — when they find one that feels really cool and authentic to them, like Riot Grrrl is to some people, they glom on to it,” Dougher says. “Now there are all these people coming out of the Rock’n’Roll Camp for Girls who are like, ‘Look at my ‘zine!’ And I’m like, ‘Why are you making a ‘zine? You have the Internet.’”

“If what you really want is to get people to hear your position and make social change,” Dougher says, “take the good things from that culture and ditch the things that don’t work in our current culture.”

—

NPR: Revolution, Girl Style, 20 Years Later

Kudos to NPR for writing about riot grrl, I guess (again, kind of tired of people just now talking about this when all I got was shit for it ten years ago!! too late to really be involved, too early to be “nostagically cool”), but I have a huge issue with this quote. Zines are still an important and vibrant part of feminism and DIY punk. This lady obviously hasn’t read an issue of MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL or SHOTGUN SEAMSTRESS or DORIS lately. I write a zine RIFF RAFF (#2 coming soon) and it is so much better than writing on the internet in any way. Zines are special and the internet can never completely replace them.

Sep. 21, 2011 at 7:28pm with 41 notes
new yorkpunkqueershopperssyracusesilver year
Shoppers - Silver Year New full length from Shoppers from Syracuse, NY. Goddamn, is this record good. I liked the demo, but the blown-out quality of the production made it a little tough to listen to. I don’t like anything recorded too cleanly, but their demos were almost painful to my ears, the way it was produced - maybe (probably) that was the point. They’ve toned down that effect here while keeping a certain blown-out quality on the (female) vocals, and keeping the fuzz and noise that made me like this band so much to begin with. At times it’s super melodic, though distorted under a layer of shit, which of course I really dig. The drummer is incredible, keeping a driving beat that kind of lurks in the background but still drives all of the songs forward. I’m of the opinion that a drummer can make or break the band, and this drummer makes it. I’ll be buying the LP on payday. You should too, and go see them if you’re in the vicinity of their tour. This record is incredible. Listen free here.

Shoppers - Silver Year

New full length from Shoppers from Syracuse, NY.

Goddamn, is this record good. I liked the demo, but the blown-out quality of the production made it a little tough to listen to. I don’t like anything recorded too cleanly, but their demos were almost painful to my ears, the way it was produced - maybe (probably) that was the point. They’ve toned down that effect here while keeping a certain blown-out quality on the (female) vocals, and keeping the fuzz and noise that made me like this band so much to begin with. At times it’s super melodic, though distorted under a layer of shit, which of course I really dig. The drummer is incredible, keeping a driving beat that kind of lurks in the background but still drives all of the songs forward. I’m of the opinion that a drummer can make or break the band, and this drummer makes it.

I’ll be buying the LP on payday. You should too, and go see them if you’re in the vicinity of their tour. This record is incredible. Listen free here.

Sep. 18, 2011 at 10:21pm with 5 notes

As tired as I get of all the Bikini Kill/Kathleen Hanna talk (my reason, in a sentence? It’s over - there are current amazing bands with women in them, find em), goddamn, “New Radio,” what a song. I want to start/be in a band. Badly. I’m just sad it took me 25 years to find the confidence. I want to push it all out of me. I want something to call my own.

It doesn’t matter who’s in control now

It doesn’t matter cause this is new radio

Aug. 29, 2011 at 9:12pm with 8 notes
at the drive in2000spunkhardcore
I’ve been listening to this again quite a bit lately. Unfortunately, I don’t own it on vinyl, but I’m going to put this post here anyway, because thematically, it fits. I grew up in a low-income/working-class neighborhood. I talk about this a lot because it is pretty integral to who I am. Anyway, the only record store in my neighborhood (which is now long gone, of course) was a five minute walk from my Catholic school, and I would save my allowance for weeks at a time to buy CDs. I randomly bought this one in 8th grade, without ever having heard it, based on the cover alone. It remained a constant through my life, at least until graduating from high school, and now it’s resurfaced. This album electrified me. In a lot of ways, it was my first introduction to “serious” punk rock. Of course, there was always NOFX and its kin floating around me, but I never liked joke punk. Still don’t. This album touched something deep in me; the lyrics; the themes. Through late-90s internet research, I started to look up some of the themes that Cedric Bixler and Omar Rodriguez touch on over and over again throughout their musical careers. El Paso, Juarez, the murders of the Mexican maquiladora women in the desert. It was through this music (and the influence of Rage Against the Machine’s songs about zapatistas) that my interest in colonialism, Mexican history and politics, and learning Spanish were sparked. These interests have remained a constant through my life. I went to Mexico, finally, in July 2007, and worked with women and children in a domestic violence shelter there, and children and their families who lived in a trash dump. That trip was a milestone for me. I knew “third world” poverty existed on an intellectual level, but that was the first time I’d seen it with my own eyes, dealt with it, acknowledged it — it was worse than I ever imagined. But at the same time, there was such beauty and hope, especially from the children. All it took to make their day better was companionship, games, small toys. This album did the same for me. It saw me through some very dark times: my first heartbreak, which I had no idea how to handle at 16 years old. A bout with depression and self-injury and drug dependency. I was doing dangerous things, putting myself in situations that easily could have turned into me being featured on the evening news. I got lucky and nothing happened. But it could have. I could have ended up like the maquilladora women. “push becomes shove, days become months, and I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun.” I got out of the shower after a twelve hour day of work and graduate school classes to hear that lyric coming from my stereo, and I was immediately transported back to being 16. It’s almost ten years later, and it still resonates so deeply. It reminds me of how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to go. It reminds me of why I work so hard and why I fight for what I fight for. It reminds me of the entire trajectory of my life to this date, this moment, this time, this place. How many albums can you say that about?

I’ve been listening to this again quite a bit lately. Unfortunately, I don’t own it on vinyl, but I’m going to put this post here anyway, because thematically, it fits.

I grew up in a low-income/working-class neighborhood. I talk about this a lot because it is pretty integral to who I am. Anyway, the only record store in my neighborhood (which is now long gone, of course) was a five minute walk from my Catholic school, and I would save my allowance for weeks at a time to buy CDs. I randomly bought this one in 8th grade, without ever having heard it, based on the cover alone. It remained a constant through my life, at least until graduating from high school, and now it’s resurfaced.

This album electrified me. In a lot of ways, it was my first introduction to “serious” punk rock. Of course, there was always NOFX and its kin floating around me, but I never liked joke punk. Still don’t. This album touched something deep in me; the lyrics; the themes. Through late-90s internet research, I started to look up some of the themes that Cedric Bixler and Omar Rodriguez touch on over and over again throughout their musical careers. El Paso, Juarez, the murders of the Mexican maquiladora women in the desert. It was through this music (and the influence of Rage Against the Machine’s songs about zapatistas) that my interest in colonialism, Mexican history and politics, and learning Spanish were sparked. These interests have remained a constant through my life. I went to Mexico, finally, in July 2007, and worked with women and children in a domestic violence shelter there, and children and their families who lived in a trash dump. That trip was a milestone for me. I knew “third world” poverty existed on an intellectual level, but that was the first time I’d seen it with my own eyes, dealt with it, acknowledged it — it was worse than I ever imagined. But at the same time, there was such beauty and hope, especially from the children. All it took to make their day better was companionship, games, small toys.

This album did the same for me. It saw me through some very dark times: my first heartbreak, which I had no idea how to handle at 16 years old. A bout with depression and self-injury and drug dependency. I was doing dangerous things, putting myself in situations that easily could have turned into me being featured on the evening news. I got lucky and nothing happened. But it could have. I could have ended up like the maquilladora women.

“push becomes shove, days become months, and I seem to have forgotten the warmth of the sun.” I got out of the shower after a twelve hour day of work and graduate school classes to hear that lyric coming from my stereo, and I was immediately transported back to being 16. It’s almost ten years later, and it still resonates so deeply. It reminds me of how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to go. It reminds me of why I work so hard and why I fight for what I fight for. It reminds me of the entire trajectory of my life to this date, this moment, this time, this place. How many albums can you say that about?

Jul. 3, 2011 at 12:00am with 6 notes
shoegaze1990sbritish
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless 180 gram reissue, red Purchased: Internet I realized halfway through the Andrew Jackson Jihad section of my record collection that doing this alphabetically meant that I would have to listen to a band’s entire discography in a row, and that started irritating me. So I decided that I’m going to start jumping around a little more, but I will still listen to every record I own. Tonight I put this record on because two of my friends who really like My Bloody Valentine came over to hang out at our apartment.  I love this record. I’ve loved this record since the first time I heard it when I was 19. I remember when I first discovered it, I listened to it every day for at least six months. I’ve owned two copies of this on vinyl - the first I sold in a broke moment, but then I bought the 180 gram reissue, which is what I still have. I don’t know that much about shoegaze, I’ll be the first to admit, but this record has been a solid part of my life for six years. The best people I know love this record. I love the buried melodies, the huge sound. One of my favorite things to do is turn this up super fucking loud and lie on the floor between my speakers taking it all in. I love the wall of sound and the dreaminess of this record. If you haven’t heard this on vinyl, you need to make it a priority in your life, ASAP.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless 180 gram reissue, red

Purchased: Internet

I realized halfway through the Andrew Jackson Jihad section of my record collection that doing this alphabetically meant that I would have to listen to a band’s entire discography in a row, and that started irritating me. So I decided that I’m going to start jumping around a little more, but I will still listen to every record I own.

Tonight I put this record on because two of my friends who really like My Bloody Valentine came over to hang out at our apartment. 

I love this record. I’ve loved this record since the first time I heard it when I was 19. I remember when I first discovered it, I listened to it every day for at least six months. I’ve owned two copies of this on vinyl - the first I sold in a broke moment, but then I bought the 180 gram reissue, which is what I still have.

I don’t know that much about shoegaze, I’ll be the first to admit, but this record has been a solid part of my life for six years. The best people I know love this record. I love the buried melodies, the huge sound. One of my favorite things to do is turn this up super fucking loud and lie on the floor between my speakers taking it all in. I love the wall of sound and the dreaminess of this record.

If you haven’t heard this on vinyl, you need to make it a priority in your life, ASAP.

Jul. 2, 2011 at 11:50pm with 1 note
2000spunkfolk
Andrew Jackson Jihad/Ghost Mice split Purchased: internet? I put this split on the Ghost Mice side first, and got 30 seconds into the first song before I flipped it. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking during the six months that I liked Ghost Mice. I was talking to Jacoby saying “why do I even have this record,” but then the Andrew Jackson Jihad song reminded me. I love this side and I always will. I was listening to this a lot last year, right before I left Columbus. I was having a lot of existential crises about my job working with women who survived domestic violence. I’d worked there for almost five years and was feeling very burnt out and frustrated, though I still really cared about and loved the work (and I still miss it almost every day). “and i don’t know if i’m capable of helping anyone/i’m at the mercy of emotions of my better friends.” It reminds me of a specific time in my life, and for that reason, this record matters.

Andrew Jackson Jihad/Ghost Mice split

Purchased: internet?

I put this split on the Ghost Mice side first, and got 30 seconds into the first song before I flipped it. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking during the six months that I liked Ghost Mice.

I was talking to Jacoby saying “why do I even have this record,” but then the Andrew Jackson Jihad song reminded me. I love this side and I always will. I was listening to this a lot last year, right before I left Columbus. I was having a lot of existential crises about my job working with women who survived domestic violence. I’d worked there for almost five years and was feeling very burnt out and frustrated, though I still really cared about and loved the work (and I still miss it almost every day).

“and i don’t know if i’m capable of helping anyone/i’m at the mercy of emotions of my better friends.”

It reminds me of a specific time in my life, and for that reason, this record matters.

Jul. 1, 2011 at 3:53pm
Andrew Jackson Jihad - Live at the Holiday Inn in Gainesville. Recorded on a 4-track after Fest 7 in a Holiday Inn room in Gainesville. This show featured AJJ, Porches, Bridge and Tunnel & Bomb the Music Industry! My first Fest was in 2009, Fest 8. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see Andrew Jackson Jihad at that Fest, because they played at that bookstore and it was way overbooked. Katrina and I waited in line but got turned away and went back to Common Grounds. I’ve still never seen Andrew Jackson Jihad, and I don’t like them as much as I once did, but I still like them. I think AJJ’s biggest strength is their lyrics, many of which I relate to. I think this record captures the spirit of the Fest perfectly - just a bunch of people who like the same things, and once a year, we all get to hang out together and have a really good time.  I’ve always said that more than anything, DIY punk means community to me. No matter where I go in the world and especially the US (except Alaska, god), I have a home. It feels good to be a part of something.

Andrew Jackson Jihad - Live at the Holiday Inn in Gainesville.

Recorded on a 4-track after Fest 7 in a Holiday Inn room in Gainesville. This show featured AJJ, Porches, Bridge and Tunnel & Bomb the Music Industry!

My first Fest was in 2009, Fest 8. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see Andrew Jackson Jihad at that Fest, because they played at that bookstore and it was way overbooked. Katrina and I waited in line but got turned away and went back to Common Grounds. I’ve still never seen Andrew Jackson Jihad, and I don’t like them as much as I once did, but I still like them. I think AJJ’s biggest strength is their lyrics, many of which I relate to. I think this record captures the spirit of the Fest perfectly - just a bunch of people who like the same things, and once a year, we all get to hang out together and have a really good time. 

I’ve always said that more than anything, DIY punk means community to me. No matter where I go in the world and especially the US (except Alaska, god), I have a home. It feels good to be a part of something.

Jun. 26, 2011 at 11:58pm with 3 notes
punk2000s
Alkaline Trio - Maybe I’ll Catch Fire Purchased: I don’t remember, which probably means Thomas bought it online. In my last post, I talked a bit about how much I like Alkaline Trio. This isn’t my favorite Alkaline Trio (Goddammit, of course, gets that honor), but it has “Radio,” which is the reason I like Alkaline Trio, and is directly responsible for getting me into punk rock. I live and breathe punk rock and have since I was 15. 15 was a big year for me. It was 2001 and I had a major surgery, my first boyfriend, and my first breakup, all in the same year. I was going to a Catholic school where I felt ostracized and alienated because my family wasn’t as rich as my classmates’, because I was into feminism and Bikini Kill and writing. I was diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder, and was having a tough time dealing with everyday realities of teenage girl life. I was also experimenting with drugs, a lot earlier than anyone else I went to school with. I started to withdraw even more from my school friends, and started to hang out with my neighborhood friends - the kids who lived in the same area as me; they were definitely not rich and I guess, could have been construed as “bad kids.” Amber and Jamie, who I’m still friends with all these years later, used to get me out of my parents’ house. We’d drive around Columbus in Amber’s car, listening to mixtapes. I clearly remember lying down in Amber’s backseat, driving around downtown Columbus near the river, hearing this song come on. I had just been dumped for the first time in my life. You know how when you’re a teenager, the first time you experience the loss of something that new, it feels like the end of the world? I had always been a tomboy, the sidekick to my prettier, flirtier friends. I finally found a boy that liked me, and four short months after what I thought at the time was the happiest time of my life, he ended it. I was crushed. I cried myself to sleep every night, stayed up til 3 AM writing in my journal, sneaking out of my parents’ house to walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes I miss feeling things so intensely. So “Radio” was it for me. That song captured that time in my life so perfectly, and I still listen to it with bittersweet nostalgia for being 15, for 2001, for Columbus and even for Whitehall.

Alkaline Trio - Maybe I’ll Catch Fire

Purchased: I don’t remember, which probably means Thomas bought it online.

In my last post, I talked a bit about how much I like Alkaline Trio. This isn’t my favorite Alkaline Trio (Goddammit, of course, gets that honor), but it has “Radio,” which is the reason I like Alkaline Trio, and is directly responsible for getting me into punk rock. I live and breathe punk rock and have since I was 15.

15 was a big year for me. It was 2001 and I had a major surgery, my first boyfriend, and my first breakup, all in the same year. I was going to a Catholic school where I felt ostracized and alienated because my family wasn’t as rich as my classmates’, because I was into feminism and Bikini Kill and writing. I was diagnosed with a form of bipolar disorder, and was having a tough time dealing with everyday realities of teenage girl life. I was also experimenting with drugs, a lot earlier than anyone else I went to school with. I started to withdraw even more from my school friends, and started to hang out with my neighborhood friends - the kids who lived in the same area as me; they were definitely not rich and I guess, could have been construed as “bad kids.”

Amber and Jamie, who I’m still friends with all these years later, used to get me out of my parents’ house. We’d drive around Columbus in Amber’s car, listening to mixtapes. I clearly remember lying down in Amber’s backseat, driving around downtown Columbus near the river, hearing this song come on. I had just been dumped for the first time in my life. You know how when you’re a teenager, the first time you experience the loss of something that new, it feels like the end of the world? I had always been a tomboy, the sidekick to my prettier, flirtier friends. I finally found a boy that liked me, and four short months after what I thought at the time was the happiest time of my life, he ended it. I was crushed. I cried myself to sleep every night, stayed up til 3 AM writing in my journal, sneaking out of my parents’ house to walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes I miss feeling things so intensely.

So “Radio” was it for me. That song captured that time in my life so perfectly, and I still listen to it with bittersweet nostalgia for being 15, for 2001, for Columbus and even for Whitehall.