Obligatory Year-End Top Ten

Surprise, surprise – I’m going to end the year with a Top Ten.  Instead of best LPs or best life events or delicious meals, I’m going to do songs and most, but not all, correspond to an event (usually just seeing the band live). And not every song was recorded in 2013, so there.  Give yourself an xmas gift and treat yourself to something off this list. And I’ll see you in 2014.  Thanks for reading and enjoy…

10. “Suspiria” – Goblin

The movie Suspira is the apex of 70s Italian horror.  It has it all – violence & gore, beautiful imagery, incoherent plot, bugs and…Goblin supplying the soundtrack.  If these psychedelic horror movie grandparents are not on your radar, they should be.  They’re touring again with about a legit a line-up as you can get.  They’ve also added a dancer, completing Suspira’s ballet school motif (see I told you the movie had it all!).  I admit, my pallet for this brand of music is fairly unsophisticated, but you really can’t go wrong here.  Impeccable musicianship, innovative composition, horror movie montages playing behind them, a dancer and not an ounce of irony.

9. “Last Laugh” – Vitamin X

What better way to cap off an awesome two-week European trip with the fam this fall than with a fucking HC show! A free Vitamin X show at that!  Nothing but respect for this band.  They’ve dodged every musical trend in punk thrown their way and still managed to innovate their sound with 70s proto-metal accents.  I can’t find anything wrong with these guys.  Fast HC that rocks.  It’s brutal and fun.  Check out the closing track on their latest LP About to Crack.  Mosh parts, sing-alongs, and cow bell. Jesus.

8. “What Do We Tell the Family” - Empty Palace

Whenever I listen to this tune and Empty Palace’s debut single, I can’t help but think of early Judas Priest.  Something about the mournful and smooth, high-pitched vocals and the heavy, but not too damn heavy chug. Toss in some tasteful keys and you’ve got yourself a hit.  Throwback rock n roll at its finest.  No posing.  These guys did time with plenty of hardcore and punk acts over the years and try as you might, you can’t strain out that influence.  If it’s not the powerful drum fills and transitions, it’s the progressions.  It’s the best non-punk, non-metal, heavy you can find.  Your $5.00 well spent.

7. “Take Me Away” – Judge

May 18, 2013: When they hit the opening notes of this one it seriously could have been someone playing a CD over the PA.  The guitar tone was dead on.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect them to sound perfect.  Sure they can all probably buy property in Manhattan after the amount of fests they’ve appeared at this year, but at that first show, for one moment, the entire crowd at Webster Hall screamed “I was thinking - of it all!” in time with the elusive Mike Judge’s gravely howl.

6. “Order of the New Age” – Nuclear Santa Claust

Guys, this is really good.  After a few years of moderately digging these guys, I’m all in on their first LP.  “Order of the New Age” is the ripping opener.  A power trio with an emphasis on power.  I could and would classify this as hardcore punk, but there is something else going on.  While fast as hell, with a rousing chorus and even a requisite “let’s go!”, the simultaneous dual vox, punchy rhythms, and surprisingly nuanced guitar arrangements make this future punk for the future punx.

5. “End of the Beginning” - Black Sabbath

On my son’s six-month birthday, my wife and I abandoned him with a baby sitter while we cruised down to the PNC Arts Center for none other than Black Sabbath.  I could give a shit if Bill Ward was or wasn’t playing drums.  The fact is Sabbath has had a revolving door of line-ups for decades.  Their membership in the aggregate could fill a goddamn city bus.  As it turns out, Sabbath in 2013 are killer.  Evidenced by the more than eight minutes of mammoth guitars and the nasally wail of Ozzy in their LP’s opener  “End of the Beginning.”  And the new album doesn’t suck either – it’s fucking great! Think classic Black Sabbath minus the medieval and hippy flourish filtered through a contemporary mix. If you feel like shelling out a few extra bucks you can get yourself a deluxe version with some extra songs that while heavy, sound like Oz, Tony and Geezer just met at the pub for the first time in 2013 and decided to start a band.

4. “I Am Love” - Give

This one came out a year or two back on the single of the same name, but was reissued this year along with the other singles from that series as a full-length LP.  For a band that doesn’t come off as hard or tough or whatever, this song is fucking nails.  Listen to the first 25 seconds of that song and tell me you aren’t pumped to hear the rest of it.  It’s a tribal invitation to mosh.  But ironically, the song is about…well, love.  “I want to kiss; I want to feel the lips of every woman and man.” I love when HC can pull off something like this.  It’s rare, to be sure.  Mosh your buddy, jump off the stage.  Yell “I am love!”

3. “Ausländer” and “Cold Hearted” - Red Dons

Picture this - a sweaty, summer basement in New Brunswick.  Packed to the gills.  No one cares.  Red Dons trebley jangle fills the space. Douglas Burns’s haunting vocals hit every brain in the room.  As they tear away at “Ausländer,” the show’s closer, it doesn’t get better than this and most of the world will never know.  Ok, enough with the pretentious rant.  Pick up this single on Dirtnap or “Notes On the Underground” on Grave Mistake and you’ll have a vague idea of what I mean.  For a part-time band whose members are scattered throughout, they sure sound like a band that beds down in the same room and perfects their tunes full-time.  The two best singles of the year.

2. “Escape From New York” & “Golden Opportunity” – Night Birds

Born To Die in Suburbia is the year’s best LP.  Hands fucking down.  I’m as subjective as they come, but this record is objectively great.  If you want to read more gushing by yours truly, go here.  When NBs open their set with “Escape from NY,” my blood boils.  Doesn’t matter if they go into the new LP’s title track or “Killer Waves” or “Rock n Roll All Night,” that intro sets the stage on fire. It transcends punk – it’s innovative as fuck while still being grounded in what it is - punk.  And like the LP, going out with “Golden Opportunity” turns the spastic velocity of Night Birds live set on its ear.  The mosh that concludes the song is drawn out and varied, but solid til the last note.  You can’t help but move.  I might be 37 years old and I should probably stand in the back, but I have no choice when they play it.  I mosh my cats off the couch when I listen to the LP at home.   “Modern Morons” gets an honorable mention because it employs the line “Sugar, salt, fat, tits, fuck, now.”

1. “Monkey Business” – Skid Row

My wife made a special mix of songs to help her through labor in the hospital.  On April 4^th, 2013, at 5:21 PM our son was born while this song was playing. 

Neo-Nutjobs

Calling all punks, hardcore kids, and jerks! Night Birds will hereby be capping off an impressive year feature the release of their sophomore LP, a new EP, a handful of tours, and a glut of regional shows at Brighton Bar this Friday. On the bill are New Jersey old schoolers Chronic Sick and really fucking old schoolers The Dickies.  Go to this show.  Lest the apocalypse-jump-starting super-shit-storm known as Sandy scrambled your memory, a nearly identical show occurred last year, almost to the day at the Brighton.  Just substitute the Dickies with Angry Samoans. This show was a blast and a half and my last pleasant punk rock memory before the hurricane hit the Shore like Godzilla on bad day.  That show had everything - great tunes, moshing, joke-telling, and a collective struggle against nazism.

One year ago…

The show at diehard punk venue Brighton Bar kicked off in usual fashion.  Night Birds ripped through their set.  Chronic Sick hit the stage.  Punks were psyched.  Now it’s time for the headliner.  Angry Samoans don’t exactly hit the stage with bombast.  This isn’t Kiss.  More like off kilter stand-up comedy.  Metal Mike clad in a WBNA Sting jersey and ill-fitting denim shorts that would make a randy sorority sister blush looks casually into the expectant audience.  “Anybody know any jokes?”

The outright attempts at comedy don’t last long and before we knew it, we were all moshing.  Right Side of My Mind, Gas Chamber, Lights Out.  The temperature in the crowded venue turns tropical.  A bald-headed punk glued to the stage drops his leather jacket.  He’s standing in front of me. Now sporting the unfortunately named “wife-beater” tank top, I can vaguely detect two-pair of right angles tattooed on the subject’s back.  The moshing continues and we are all jostled around. The tank top gets pulled askew briefly and I have a full view of this guy’s “sick ink.” Yup, it’s a swastika tattoo.  Goddammit. Now why is this jackass at the show?  Is this because Samoans have some admittedly un-PC lyrics? Is this cuz of the song about Hitler’s cock?  Whattamoron!

Having grown up in the confederacy (read, northeast suburbs of Atlanta), it wasn’t uncommon to see some dickhead with a swazi tattoo or an embarrassing cover-up of a really bad mistake bumping around one of the bigger shows. At a reunited Misfits show in the late 90s we were shocked to see ol’ Adolf’s likeness illustrated on some jackass’s shoulder blade.  “Look, it’s a fucking Hitler tattoo!” my buddy screamed in a comically high register illustrating his bewilderment and disgust as he took swings at the guy’s back when he rolled over our heads. When the Dead Milkmen came through town, a gaggle of neo-nutjobs turned out for Tiny Town.  Unable to interpret sarcasm, their right arms held erect during the entire tune.

What do nazis do in 2013?  How do they even exist?  Maybe there are some enclaves where they can function reasonably.  Maybe like a right-wing Crimethinc holed up in the woods.  In fact, many of their efforts take place in some rural environment on some isolated tract of land. Sieg heiling the all-white crowd, trying not to step on cow shit.  Punk fucking rock dude. 

Outside of these scenarios, the concern remains – how does a jackass with swazis on the backs of his hands and “white power” across his neck go grocery shopping?  How does he go out to eat without having his burger molested by bodily fluids?  It must be a miserable existence!  How the fuck does a nazi eat ice cream?!  You can’t be seething with racism and xenophobia while enjoying some Ben and Jerrys!

But I digress…

This bonehead was psyched on the Samoans.  He knew all the words.  He was on the stage, off the stage, grabbing the mic, singing along.  When his shirt was eventually ripped off, it didn’t take long before whispering and pointing at the back piece in question turned into shouting insults and (not-so) cheap shots.  The tolerance level went from short-lived to non-existent.  Everybody started moshing this dude.  And it had to been fucking clear even to him.  Like I said, this guy was psyched on the Samoans and nothing was gonna stand in his way from “5-4-baby-3-2-1.”  I would have admired the commitment and fortitude if the ends were not so evident.  It’s like jumping out of an airplane sans parachute with all the determination and confidence of Superman. You’re still gonna’ be a pancake.

Fuckin’ nazis.  Elwood Blues was dead on.  Like him, we all hate nazis.  But nowhere is it quite as acute, even knee jerk, as Berlin.  I’m not an expert on politics and punk rock in Deutchland, so this is just one punk’s perspective – a punk who’s donned a backpack and hit the old world more than a handful of times. My buddy Robert currently resides squarely in the Berlin hardcore scene. He puts out records under the moniker Refuse, promotes shows and is genuinely one dedicated dude.  That night, before hitting the Pakrway down to Long Branch, Robert and I exchanged a batch of emails chiefly regarding the most controversial of the night’s snotty triumvirate, Chronic Sick.  Yeah, the Cutest Band in Hardcore re-entered the punk rock lexicon again with the No Way Records re-issue of their two way-out-of-print-pay-exorbitant-sums-for-an-original EPs. 

Now the cover art for their 12” EP features America’s and Berlin’s least favorite misappropriated Asian symbol on singer Grey Gory’s forehead. Given this, Robert said there’s no way Chronic Sick could play in Berlin regardless of keeping company with Angry Samoans or Night Birds or the Dickies or whomever.  Somehow a swastika painted on one’s face might make the wrong impression in Germany. 

So what’s the difference between the cover art and this jackass’s tattoo?  I assert that donning a swazi ala Chuck Manson in 1982 in order to be as offensive and idiotic as possible is a far cry to committing permanent ink to your back like it’s the number on a football jersey.  And like the identifying number on a jersey, having that tattoo proclaims loudly “this is me.”  Is Chronic Sick’s record cover in bad taste?  Yes.  Is that the point? Duh!  Is Greg Gory devoted to bone-headed causes like white power and national socialism?  Fuck off.  Still I can’t object to a German person’s sensitivity on the subject.  I’m not even gonna’ go further than this sentence in an attempt to psychoanalyze a nation.  It’s just too bad it prohibits digging some killer NJ hardcore.

As the Samoans set wore on, I faded to the back like the out-of-breath thirty-something that I am.  From this distant view I could make out a struggle between the nazi and the punks. Fever pitch, reached.  In what took seconds but appeared to unfold in slow-mo, two firm hands grabbed the guy by his shoulders and rushed him headfirst towards the front doors.  Eighty-six time.  It seems the owner of the Brighton Bar had reached the end of his patience and personally escorted the neo-nutjob to the sidewalk.  And who should be the owner of the venue? Who liberated the show from the lone jackass?  His name is – wait for it – Greg Gory.  He sings for Chronic Sick.

"Vannage"

Get in the van.  The Night Birds connect with Washington DC on a rainy Friday night.  A modest turnout and a Modern Life Is War reunion of sorts awaits.  First I must um, endure the afternoon ride down to a shutdown capital with New Jersey’s favorite feathered punks. 

For those of you that have had the pleasure, you would agree that a Night Birds show delivers a hyperactive, hardcore punk blast with nary a spare breath to be had.  Aside from a vacuum-sealed tightness, the intensity of pissed off killer bees, and tunage you’ll be humming tomorrow; if they have anything, it’s endurance. If they aren’t playing 16 songs in no-time-flat in your town, they probably will be next weekend.  You may ask what caffeine, sugar, controlled substance combo elicits such consistent performance.  And what fervent discussion of contemporary ills both personal and political prepares them for on-stage catharsis? Fair questions.

I can only expound on the latter.  Hitting the road precisely at load-in time at the onset of Friday rush hour, meant they’d be lucky to make their set-time, let alone grab a bite for dinner or relieve a stressed bladder.  Nope, yours truly was the only van occupant eating dessert first, then dinner, chased by a tumbler of coffee.  Brian, Joe, PJ, and Ryan were forced to rely only on animated conversation for any fuel for this night’s performance.

If you think their van banter consists solely Seinfeld episode re-creation, horror movie debate, and visions of the near term arrival of dystopia, you’d only be half right.  While it’s true that Seinfeld reverence is utmost; and it’s true that symbology in Kurbick’s The Shining yielded much discussion; and it’s certainly true that a well-thumbed copy of Jared Diamond’s treatise on the disintegration of societies (the aptly titled, “Collapse”) sat on the dash, there’s so much more to the content of a Night Birds run.

I was forbidden, for ample reason, from recording the proceedings.  And thus direct quotes will not be featured here.  I will spare you from my crummy paraphrasing that would rob all verbiage of delivery and character.  Instead let’s look at the vast array of conversational chapters…

Poop, farts, and diarrhea in various scenarios and situational environments were discussed at length on four occasions.  So were submarine sandwiches, fuckin’ nazis at least twice, and the anticipated wardrobe of modern HC kids.  A general distaste for the current state of Metallica gave rise to much enthusiasm for their recent IMAX movie.  Plans were hatched to view it a-s-a-p. As in, tomorrow before their next show.  After all, there is a movie theater next to Webster Hall.  Christopher Reeve made an appearance, as did Hall n’ Oats, Louie CK and Tenacious D.  I’ll let you, the reader, decide which side of judgment each of the aforementioned landed on at discussion’s end.  There were anecdotes aplenty when it came to sketchy experiences at shows. The usual - tough guys, carjackings and machetes.  Three negative observations of Chattanooga, Tennessee by three different mouths yielded another’s expressed desire to visit post haste.  The latest on Netflix and the inner-workings of NYC jails.  Parents, jobs, swingers, and television.  All talk halted when a Delorean crossed our path.  Smart phones came out, vanity plate options were debated.  Besides the obvious “Outatime,” “Teen Wolf” was also suggested.  And no road trip is complete without warning of sketchy people that smell like urinal cakes.  The merits of E Town Concrete LPs, Poison Idea and what’s more memorable, the content of Saturday morning cartoons or the theme songs for Saturday morning cartoons.  Did you know there is an episode of Family Feud or some similar game show where a contestant answered “turkey” for every question?  Transsexuals came up three times, disturbing movies were analyzed at dissertation level and the moon-landing. The foibles of coworkers were listed and reviewed – especially those that are willing to stop their car in mid-traffic to pick up a broken pair of sunglasses.  Urination, testicles, and the neighborhoods of Manhattan.  Uncomfortable doctor’s visits, pizza and the cops.  Occasionally, all discourse was paused for CDs both stand-up comedy and pop-punk.  These interludes were short-lived however, and the conversation picked-up where left off debating, reviewing, and expounding on breakfast, China, Pee-wee Herman, Beyonce, Nike shoes, massage chairs, Urkel, dogs, vomit, Germany, Japan, and umbrellas.

When the show ended and punks turned into bar hoppers and the Night Birds van revved up for the rainy drive back home, what then?  What topics remained to keep the driver awake and the passengers entertained?  How do sweaty, road-weary punks get home safely?  It’s nothing a Wawa can’t cure.  That, and a livid debate over Broken Lizard movies.

Re-re-introducing...

Part II… 

While my friends and I nervously waited amongst a crowd of skinheads for the show to start, an older skater we knew from the suburbs said in a dead serious Southern twang “just you wait until Sick of it All plays.  They are hardcore, man, HARDcore.” That was my first hardcore show - Sheer Terror, Biohazard, and Sick of it All. The following week I picked up Just Look Around, my buddy who attended the show with me picked up Blood, Sweat and No Tears.  A friend of a friend introduced us to a concept called straight edge and loaned us a copy of Minor Threat Complete Discography, which made the rounds between each of our respective stereos.  When I heard “Out of Step” it was another game changer; a watershed moment. "Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t fuck."  Never had such words, which would have been easily labeled as lame, immature, or “pussy” by my peers, been spoken with such conviction, confidence and fuck you attitude.  Instantly, I recognized it as me. Amongst the drink-every-weekend-down-at-the-lake-and-score-chicks rednecks at my school, I felt like a shy loser who didn’t fit in.  I quickly became a loudmouth, asshole loser with an X on his hand who didn’t fit in. I’m fond of saying that Minor Threat and Henry Rollins’ spoken word got me through high school. We also learned of a band call Insted.  You could buy them at the mall.  The album was What We Believe.   I gave 7 Seconds another shot.  I special ordered Youth of Today from the Record Bar.  Luckily the Where the Wild Things Are comp was in-stock. We listened to NOFX, Operation Ivy, Bad Religion, Ramones, Green Day.  For years, the bad kids, the punks, the skaters, the metal heads, the degenerics were whispering about a local band called Act of Faith.  They, in fact, led a whole scene of jerks like us.  When that door cracked open, my friends and I broke it down and dove in headfirst.  Shows, zines, 7”s, local bands, touring bands, new friends, new ideas, and fuck the suburban bullshit around us.  On the Out the Shizzy tour, Kevin Seconds with long hair called us stupid for moshing.  I remember peering down at the boxes of my cassettes and CDs.  The heavy metal titles seemed old and obsolete.  Those bands didn’t speak to me anymore.  Anthrax and Iron Maiden were now guilty pleasures. Slayer got a pass.  The handful of punk and hardcore records I owned were few in number but mighty.  I knew I was entering a new world and had a lot of cool music to get my hands on. Bands I missed out on until years later because I started with the wrong release:  Black Flag (heard In My Head first), Cro-Mags (heard Best Wishes first), Gorilla Biscuits (heard “Sittin’ Round at Home” first).  My friends and I started a band, duh. Our guitar player’s older brother had a metal band called Flesh Pool.  Early in my senior year, we went to see SOIA on the Scratch the Surface tour.  A band called Strife opened and they blew me away.  I bought their tape; it was blue. This purchase is important, because it signaled to me that there might be, yeah there are hundreds of records out there that can’t be found at the mall.  There were labels other than Dischord, Epitaph, or In-Effect.  I scoured the thank you list of One Truth for the names of other bands. A good starting point.  Later during my senior year, my band opened for SOIA.  Part scenester, part fan-boy, I got to the venue several hours early so I could talk to them. One day I visited the house of a couple of local hardcore heroes, they were listening to Manliftingbanner from Europe. “Europe!?  They have hardcore there too?” This would prove significant, as I would later venture across the pond several times for work and always got my bearings in a new country by sniffing out the local hardcore scene.  We wore choker-beads and headbands.  We listened to hardcore that was often slow and plodded along.  It wasn’t all shouting either, sometimes there were talking parts. Krisnha-core. We saw shows in living rooms and basements.  We subsisted on Fantastic Foods hummus and falafel mixes.  One summer, I saw 10 Yard Fight at the I-Defy house in Atlanta.  They were so fast, simple, and bullshit-free.  They sounded like the hardcore bands I originally cut my teeth on. Enter youth crew revival, In My Eyes, Fast Break; then thrash core, Tear it Up, What Happens Next.  A studio engineer my old band was working with once asked the guitar player and I who caught the “fast bug” first.  I’m guessing we always had it.  And for whatever reason, I always had the music bug, or it’s in my blood or enter your own metaphor here.  My parents aren’t especially musical; got no older siblings to say “hey, listen to this.”  From the get-go I’ve just dug a cool beat, a driving rhythm carrying an aggressive rock n roll attitude…and a good mosh part…   

Reintroducing...

Since I’m giving this blog another shot, I thought I’d go ahead and give you, yeah you, another introduction.  My first intro many moons past was all about getting down with New Jersey hardcore punk fucking rock. Working backwards, this one reads as my introduction to notes, beats and melodies…er, music.  Michael Jackson, Kiss, Agnostic Front…it’s all there. So enjoy.  And per my previous post…the one that says you should drop everything and buy the new Night Birds LP…well, run, don’t walk and do it.  Then come back and read about this author discovering the Ramones while watching National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Part I…

I was born in 1976, the year that Kiss released Destroyer.  When I was about 5 years old, a next door neighbor gave me a Kiss doll.  Gene Simmons to be precise.  I loved that doll.  Eventually its hair fell out and its protruded tongue snapped off.  My Dad’s Moody Blues record used to give me crazy nightmares.  I remember once having a complete shit-fit when he played it. We lived in DC in the early 80s.  Minor Threat played a show down the street on my birthday.  When I was in first grade, I spent an afternoon riding around with a friend’s family in their conversion van.  We listened to Michael Jackson’s Thriller album over and over.  “Beat It” was the track for me.  It was so godamnn heavy and tough.  I begged my mom for the cassette until she eventually relented.  By second grade, MTV was on the idiot box all the time and I listened to the radio constantly.  I soon became obsessed with Duran Duran.  “Wild Boys” and “Hungry Like the Wolf” were my favorite – arguably two of their weirder, darker songs as far as the New Romantics go.  I heard the word “punk” thrown around a lot during this time.  My younger sister got a new shirt she referred to as her “punk rock shirt.” The first time I heard the Ramones was in the movie National Lampoon’s Vacation.  Hey, ho, let’s go.  Unforgettable.  In fourth grade, my babysitter actually played me some Kiss.  He didn’t offer a Gene Simmons doll, but he did give me all of his dubbed cassettes as he recently purchased the originals.  He had painstakingly Xeroxed all the covers, so they were as good as original to 10-year-old me.  Overnight I went from owning a little Kiss, Motley Crue, Poison and Def Leppard to having more of each of those bands, plus Iron Maiden, Ratt, and Judas Priest to boot. There was not only Crazy Nights, there was Alive I and II.  There was not only Girls Girls Girls, there was also Shout at the Devil.  There was Powerslave!  I had to have them all. The first 7” I ever purchased was Dream Warriors by Dokken.  When I saw the video for “Paradise City,” I thought it was the heaviest fucking thing I had ever seen or heard.  It was probably the first time I heard a guitar riff that made me want to inflict violence on another human being.  I used to record the Headbanger’s Ball from 12:00 – 3:00 every Saturday night on my VCR while I slept.  I would wake up on Sunday mornings with three hours of heavy metal to dig through, rife with new bands to discover.  When I heard Metallica’s cover of “Am I Evil” over at my teenaged neighbor’s house one day, I felt equally scared and intrigued.  “Whoa! This dude’s mother was a witch!” The teenaged hessian who lived across the street from a buddy of mine demanded absolute silence when Metallica was on the turntable.  You could get evicted on the spot.  I remember being struck by the cover of one of his cassettes.  The American flag, a pair of boots, Live at CBGBs.  “Antisocial” - Anthrax and “One” - Metallica became the heaviest fucking things on the planet.  Maybe Slayer was heavier.  I didn’t know anything about that though.  All the bad kids in school wore Slayer shirts.  The one with the big green monster grinning on it.  Slayer was definitely Satanic and I was sure to go to hell if I even thought about listening to them.  Then I saw the video for “War Ensemble” one night and immediately went out and bought Seasons in the Abyss at Tape World. Who needs to go to heaven anyway? Now that was memorable. I can even tell you what I had for dinner that night. Italian Meatball sub with cheese from Subway. Soon it was the break down in “Wake Up Dead” by Megadeth that made me want to inflict violence (it still does).  It was around this time that I noticed the Crimson Ghost on a lot of the T-shirts of my favorite metalers.  I read in Metal Maniacs that Metallica worshipped this band called The Misfits.  I also kept hearing the name Sex Pistols.  Anthrax covered them, Megadeth covered them.  I remember reading a camp counselor’s 12^th grade thesis about them.  I couldn’t believe their story; the filth and fury indeed.  In 8^th grade, my mohawk-sporting, ne’er-do-well friend and I were asked what kind of music we listened to.  I proudly boasted HEAVY METAL.  My friend looked at me with disgust and betrayal splattered across his face and yelled “No man, HARDCORE.” One night a friend stayed over at my house.  He had to have written permission to ride home on the bus with me after school.  To accompany a night of horror movies and junk food, he brought with him three cassettes, The Exploited, DRI, and fucking Walk Among Us by the Misfits.  The next day, I demanded a ride to the mall so I could get Walk Among Us for myself. I needed my own copy because I would be listening to it constantly for the next 20 something years.  I loved the DRI tape as well.  Thrash Zone.  I couldn’t believe how great the lyrics were.  “Thrash Hard” told the story of a brutal mosh pit at a show you’d do just about anything to find transportation too. I was obsessed with Anthrax. Among the Living; the riffs, the chanted backup vocals, and something the liner notes referred to as the “mosh part.”  When Attack of the Killer B’s hit the stores, I learned about their old side project Stormtroopers of Death.  Well, if Scott Ian and Charlie Benante played on it, it must be fucking killer.  It was.  I immediately recognized the riffs from the opening credits of Headbangers Ball.  It was on Headbangers Ball that I saw the video for “Dance of the Dead” by Corrosion of Conformity.  I immediately bought the Blind tape, but also saw that they had a slew of older releases.  So I picked up Animosity as well.  That changed the story.  Dark as shit, heavy as fuck, no solos, no jokes, just intensity.  Suicidal Tendencies were hard to ignore.  In seemingly every metal zine I would flip through, there was a photo of them glaring beneath their bandanas.  Plus they had a song on my favorite TV show, 21 Jump Street.  Their album titles made bold statements like Join the Army and Feel Like Shit.  Their new single was called “You Can’t Bring Me Down.”  Dude, fuck yeah.  Guess what, by virtue of their name there was noooo way my mom was gonna’ let me have any of their tapes.  Forget it.  I was allowed, Kill ‘Em All, but not Suicidal Tendencies.  Priorities.  Other bands/albums I was not allowed to own, but did anyway: Appetite for Destruction (that damn parental advisory sticker) and Helloween (they had “hell” in their name). I was loaned a warblly, beat-up tape by 7 Seconds.  It had no case or cover, but the faded ink on the dusty cassette said “The Crew.”  I honestly, didn’t understand what I was listening to.  From my repeated, weekly viewings of Headbangers Ball, I got turned onto Biohazard.  Biohazard like SOD referenced the cryptic acronym NYHC.  Biohazard covered Bad Religion.  One night in 10^th grade, during a failed attempt to drop acid at the mall, I cavalierly purchased a CD from a band I had never heard before – Agnostic Front.  Their name turned up in Metal Maniacs from time to time.  They had a lot of tattoos.  Their singer was in jail. Biohazard liked them.  There seemed to be this other world out there.  Until that time, I mostly went to big concerts and stood miles away; only assuming I was actually seeing the band on my ticket. Kiss, Skid Row, Metallica, Lollapalooza.  Even my buddy’s former hippy mom took us to the Grateful Dead (there, I said it). After seeing Pantera at a relatively small club and subsequently circle-pitting my ass off with the hessians, I knew something smaller, something more personal and more direct existed…and thrived.  I wanted in.

Next Level Rock n Roll

Goddammit!  Ok, let’s start again.  I don’t think I’ve done a damn thing here in nearly a year.  Laziness, procrastination, excuses, rationalization.  Contrary to what you may think, that wasn’t the original idea.  August was my last post.  Between then and now, my wife got knocked up and had a baby.  I turned 36 and now I’m on the cusp of 37.  I’m at the point where I don’t even really remember my age.  When I was a little kid, it was a badge of honor and now it just comes out as a deflated sigh.  Thiiiirrrrty-siiiixxx.  But I digress!  See what I mean about procrastination?  It’s not that I don’t have ideas or the concept of motivation.  I just don’t appear to be motivated by my ideas, oh and there was that cool thing on Netflix I had to watch.  Ok, wait, NOW let me start again.  And you, you go start your own band!

Night Birds “Born to Die in Suburbia”:  Clearly, someone forgot to tell Night Birds about the sophomore slump.  When these punkers decided to sit down a few years ago and write their first LP, what later became The Other Side of Darkness, the guy in the band who yells the words confided in me that their aim was the best punk record ever.  And he further explained, cuz if they try to write the ultimate punk screed, it was bound to be pretty fucking great regardless. What became of those efforts was a blazing 13 songs produced in such a way that they, in essence, constituted an undivided whole; despite the track numbers on my iPod.  It not only exceeded immediate expectations, it set the bar really high for the next go round. 

With that, we are here to talk about what happens when a west coast-influenced hardcore band goes into an east coast studio on a cold February morning.  That curious cocktail gives us Born to Die in Suburbia (which shall be heretofore named BTDIS); 14 rippers making what is easily the best punk record of the year.  And it may be one of the best punk records ever.  Full disclosure: bassist Joe Keller has recently described my endorsement as “James Lipton-esque.”  That astute observation notwithstanding, let’s break this down on a subatomic level…

We start with the instrumental cover “Escape From New York.”  Penned by the guy who arguably invented slasher horror, inclusion of this number as the album opener says less about a one-eyed Kurt Russell’s endeavors and more about the statement this firmly-planted New Jersey band is striving to convey with this album.  The tune is melodic, but foreboding.  It doesn’t initially sound “punk” to me and it’s certainly not primitive.  It’s not even masquerading as juvenile though; it’s really fucking good and emblematic of true talent.  During the second half of this intro, PJ Russo, the latest addition to the group, and filling Mike Hunchback’s shoes so well that his big toe might be starting to show, hits Eddie Van Halen “Eruption” velocity.  I defy you to find a more interest-piquing invitation to listen further.

In no time flat they deliver the album’s title track.  Doesn’t this love song to the suburbs confirm what we already realized with the opener?   They’re waving the Garden State flag high.  The state that gave us Glenn Danzig and John Stewart has another champion. A line of demarcation runs the down the Hudson River and this band stakes their claim on the western bank and inherits a gritty birthright. The Misfits, The Worst, AOD, Tear it Up, Night Birds.

At this point in time, I will ask that you not look up their drummer’s zip code and please do not read the credits to see where this album was recorded.  Instead, let’s get down with the third tune – “Modern Morons.”  This is the last of a 1,2…3-punch album opener.  It’s a buck, twenty-nine shaming of the current state of our shitty society.  Now this is what hardcore punk does best, it rails against the system we so often appear happily shackled to.  I never thought the lyric “Sugar Salt Fat Tits Fuck Now” would make so much goddamn sense. 

You would think they could take a break at this point and the listener could let down his or her guard.  Naw, the story gets darker, with “Domestic Dispute.” Set to rock-n-roll riffage that would make Billy Zoom proud, we’re also treated with Eric Davidson’s New Bomb Turks howl on some guest vox.  Five songs in and the outlook is even bleaker as “No Spoilers” quickly decries hard drug abuse in :39, or the precise amount of time needed to make such an obvious point.

And now we’re back to a judgment on elements of American culture - the ever-present, inescapable advertisement saturation.  Would I have drowned all those M&Ms in my teenaged stomach with Coca-Cola Classic if Channel 1 hadn’t told me how great it would be in my homeroom? We’ll never know.  Still, this undeniably catchy song makes its point whilst embracing some piano notes during the chorus.  Lest you sneer, please remember that Bad Religion used piano on their first LP and Black Sabbath didn’t shy away from synth.

Upon reaching Side A’s closer, “Nazi Gold,” I’d like to remind you that we haven’t cracked 10 minutes yet, and no song has been over two mins.  Unaided by Google, I confess to having no idea what this song is about.  What we hear is nearly four minutes of what I’ve been saying Night Birds needed from day one – a dirge.  DI had them; Adolescents had them.  It’s complex and layered, but plods along at a static rhythm.  Yet it’s doesn’t betray the intensity of the first six, it highlights them. We’ve walked a bit deeper into the cellar here and the light is fading.  It very well could be a harbinger of things to come, flip the record over and see for your self.

Side B launches with another instrumental meshed with a ripper.  The surfy melodies we’ve come to love about this band gives rise to “Pretty Poison.”  This is classic Night Birds; fast delivery, nasal guitar leads, and a memorable chorus to boot. Up next, “Villa Obscura,” a mid-tempo driver with some noodley riffing ala DKs.  Again, without the internets, I’m at a loss on the subject.  Rest-assured, the content is dark, the mood somber, the presentation severe. 

I won’t dwell long on “Maimed for the Masses.”  If you got your hands on the Fat Wreck Chords 7” of the same name, then you know how good this is.  The machine-gun paced tune still taps out at three minute plus with a rousing refrain backed by drumming somewhere between The Damned’s first single and first LP.  It is a legitimate hit.  

By the time, the needle reaches “New Cults,” darkness pervades.  Again, looking at the bleaker side of American culture is a call for mass-suicide-inspiring cults to supplant popular religion, “something with the sting you don’t get in those old institutions.”  Musically, this may be the most singular track on the LP.  I’m hard-pressed to say it doesn’t sound like Night Birds though.  Could this be what maturity looks like with credit intact?  Would a third LP reveal tunes more akin to “New Cults” than “Thrilling Murder”? 

As we near the end of the Side B, a Christmas song.  Well, an anti-Christmas song.  Lyrically not extending Fear’s missive of “Fuck Christmas” much further, it’s wrapped in a pounding dirge.  Complete with riffs that bring to mind “Richard Hung Himself” and “Police Beat,” it sets you, the faithful listener, up for the excellent album closer.  “Golden Opportunity” collects everything we love about this band: infectious riffs somewhere between melodic and insane, a sing-along chorus, and lyrics both championing the self and nauseated by its very existence. Punctuating that is a fuck-you-all mosh part that they pound into the ground.  It’s a release much like “Can’t Get Clean” on LP numero uno.  Mosh your cats off the couch or if out of the house, your fellow commuters.

That’s all folks.  If you just skipped to the bottom and ignored the above pretentious ramblings, BTDIS is: fast and dark hardcore punk broken up the occasional dirge or mid-tempo number. Snotty guitars, pissed-off vocals and catchy all-around.  Actual songs at high velocity.  You can feel thoughtful and still air-drum wildly on your knees or the steering wheel.  Evident are all the usual influences you’ve come to expect, but packing a unique, dynamic energy and pacing. It’s Next Level Rock n Roll.