The Birthday Party still reigns as my favorite Nick Cave band…check out this great live rendition of “Deep in the Woods”. They were dark goth murder punk, full of piss and vinegar, and this tune really exhibits all the bottled up explosive rage that made them so great. The bass player was pretty damn cool…really, he had this gay creepy cowboy look kickin’ in the late 70’s.

Aw heck I still love the DKs even if they fell apart and started fighting about money. They were one of the most ferocious punk bands ever in their day, you can’t deny them that. Check out this great live clip of them recording their love song for Nazi punks. I once had a Nazi dork flip a lit cigarette at me on stage…he didn’t walk out of the club on his own accord, and I think I was able to bop him in the face (while still playing) with the end of my bass, before the fracas took him away. There were a lot of those pinheads up in Phoenix back in the late 80’s and being that I played in a band fronted by a fat, really friendly guy in a g-string, they made us a target. So again “Nazi Punks, Fuck Off”.

The country previously known as Burma has been in the news quite a bit recently what with all the Monks being rounded up and killed. The band who so poignantly, or accidentally ended up with the name of this troubled region in their name have also been keeping pretty busy in the last few years. The back story of course is they were one of the most admired punk bands of the late 70’s early 80’s who broke up seemingly right as their momentum was reaching sound barrier velocity. Their reunion was one of those things that defied expectations, spawning new music that sounds as if they simply picked up right where they left off, with even more raw energy. Check out this video for the excellent song “Dirt” as well as a trailer for the documentary film which captures the whole reunion, of this often overlooked extremely influential band. Remarkably, Roger Miller (guitarist) had recently posted on Craigslist seeking guitar students to help pay the bills in downtime between his band projects. The post is no longer available…but you can read about it on Pitchfork. Needless to say if the opportunity arises for you to take a guitar lesson from Roger Miller…DO SO.

Mission of Burma- Official Website

Spin magazine wins this weeks (I’m sure they’d win every week if I paid any attention) idiotic review award, for their vanilla glossing of the Meat Puppets. Let’s get one thing clear here first off, I love me some Meat Puppets, and I own their first few singles released way back when they were not seemingly stuck in a rut of mediocre college rock sounding nonsense, if you like that, well fine, they are certainly GOOD at it. The review states that this new release will show why “Kurt Cobain was a fan boy”. I call utter bullshit on that statement and you can compare as I found this really great old video of a home rehearsal from 1983, the sound quality is what you’d expect, but hang with it, it’s pretty great. I’d have to think Kurt Cobain was a pretty sharp guy, at least when it came to the MUSIC…I think what made him a “fanboy” (fucking lame description of anyone) was the hyper spastic noise punk with the over the top insanity that really pushed the early Meat Puppets stuff out of the normal sphere of Punk Rock. This is a band that has gone through a number of total sound renovations over the years, however there are clearly elements of the early stuff that would have been influential to a young Cobain, the later stuff…not so much methinks.

New Track “Dissapear”-

Youtube Video- Meat Puppets Home Rehearsal 1983

Spin- Review

Hey! In case you didn’t get the memo someone uploaded this kickass concert from Rome 1980 with a fully stacked deck of Talking Heads! Adrian Belew, Bernie Worrell and more..Damn this band just kicks ass live. Even if David Burn is just a Mark Mothersbaugh imitator at heart. They all look incredibly young and this has the adverse effect of making me feel slightly old. slightly…c’mon.

Talking Heads I Zimbra-

Via- Metafilter

Check out the kids of 1984! This is a great clip of Black Flag, and a good example of how funny it can be when you just take audio off the mixing board. I’ve had this happen in a few bands, usually when we played on the local access cable TV channel (never a good idea, never a good idea, never a good idea, although it does usually make for good late night humor). the end result in this case is you get quite a good bit of Henry “singing”, and unfortunately not nearly enough of Greg’s guitar…which if you ever saw Black Flag, was never the case. It’s still fun to watch them all, they were around the top of their game here. Being a novice bass player at the time I had much love for little Kira up there, toughing it out amongst all that testosterone, thumping away like the champ she is.

Go Hank! He is really on a roll here speaking in Israel about his visits to wounded soldiers at Walter Reid Hospital, and the effects of war. He’s so damn good at crafting these speaking things these days, his points are perfectly illustrated, he delivers with just the right amount of candid human appeal, and he is careful to not offend the people he is trying to make a point to. He ends with a very heartfelt personal appeal to the people in the audience to find their anger and stop this fighting so that their children do not inherit it. Thank you once again Henry for providing a whiff of sanity in this crazy time. The politicians and the profiteers don’t want to stop the wars…it’s up to us.

Henry Rollins: In Israel

This documentary came out last year, but is now getting posted on Youtube by fans…for free, and c’mon there is no reason it shouldn’t be, it wasn’t about the money. So, if you still don’t quite understand how special and cool the American hardcore movement of the early eighties was, or if you just want to feel all warm and tingly with nostalgia, you can do so for free. Some names are suspiciously absent from the film, most notably the Misfits and Dead Kennedys (perhaps because of the internal lawsuits). The Minutemen were not mentioned or shown much either except for some interviews with Mike Watt, but I guess they have their own movie. The film does a nice job however of condensing a seething moshpit full of information and media into a pretty concise time line of events. There is a wealth of great old footage and some really great inside information on some of the key events that really kicked off a huge movement, ignored for the most part by the mainstream industry. Long live the Bad Brains…

American Hardcore (part 1)

American Hardcore (part 2)
American Hardcore (part 3)
American Hardcore (part 4)
American Hardcore (part 5)
American Hardcore (part 6)
American Hardcore (part 7)
American Hardcore (part 8)
American Hardcore (part 9)
American Hardcore (part 10)

Like I said the Minutemen were pretty much absent from the American Hardcore video…They were probably one of the most influential bands to me (as a young punk bass player anyway). Here is a trailer clip from their documentary, which features alot of the same faces from the AH doc.

The Minutemen We Jam Econo:

The Minutemen DVD: We Jam Econo

How do you describe the Gun Club? i mean they certainly had punk rock attitude, and lived the lifestyle, but they just didn’t sound like anything else goin’ on at the time. Jeffrey Lee Pierce certainly looked like he could have come more from any of the later 80’s L.A. glam rock bands, yet the swamp punk guitar sound was totally like nothing else. The short run of the Gun Club produced two very influential albums, many classic songs, and yet they never achieved the success they deserved…Sex Beat was certainly one of the great ones with it’s fast pace and lyrics full of lusty youthful angst. Here is a live performance, probably later in the band’s career. Sadly after years of drug and alcohol abuse Jeffrey passed away at the age of 37.

Gun Club: Sex Beat:

Gun Club: The Gub Club story in detail

She’s dirty, she’s mean, she’s mighty unclean, and she rocks. Peaches combines punk, electronic music, and just plain old shocking rock n’ roll into something fun and alive. It sounds cliche to say she’s not afraid to take risks, but in the case of Peaches it’s bullet true, and this is what makes her such a great artist. She’s not commercial pretty, but she is twice as hot, as she provocatively pummels you with her pussy powered audio attack. Her last album “Fatherfucker” included the gem “Kick It” which was a duet with mr. rock n’ roll himself Iggy Pop, how cool is that for her? Peaches latest album “Impeach My Bush” continues on with the minimal electrotrash bleeps, metal guitar, and the adds an unhealthy splattering of good old fashioned 70’s glam rock. Check out the first video release, and a few really silly funny videos demonstrating the recording process of Peaches.

Peaches - Boys Wanna Be Her:

Peaches: Recording One
Peaches: Recording Two
Peaches: Official Website