Archive for June, 2007

Ages ago I did a “Selections from The Punk Vault” on the first Christ on Parade album - Sounds of Nature. In it I had mentioned that the record had been out of print for close to 20 years and it was a shame such a great hardcore record was unavailable to the masses.  That is until now.

Neurot Recordings has reissued it on CD. But that is not all. Prank Records has reissued it on vinyl. Either flavor contains the original album along with the tracks from Skate Rock Volume 3, as well as the original unreleased version of the “Isn’t Life a Dream” EP with Barrie singing instead of Noah (though I honestly prefer the Noah vocals on those recordings, but it is still really cool to hear and have this version).

The vinyl also comes in a limited edition colored vinyl version only available through mailorder. It is half black, half clear/green splatter. It also comes with a big insert with all the lyrics and photos of the band. It’s a really great package well worth owning even if you have the original thanks to the extra tracks and the cool color vinyl.

This one hits a little harder than most of these I’ve reported as I was a big Chris Benoit fan and thought he was easily one of the best workers in the business in the past decade. Taken from the WWE website…

World Wrestling Entertainment is deeply saddened to report that today Chris Benoit and his family were found dead in their home. There are no further details at this time, other than the Benoit family residence is currently being investigated by local authorities.

A sad sad day for wrestling fans indeed, and a terrible tragedy that a man and his family were all found dead.

UPDATE: Initial reports are stating that it was a double murder/suicide, though no evidence of guns being involved. I can’t begin to imagine what happened to make someone fly off the handle so far to the point of no return like this, especially from someone who for years I’ve read nothing but positive things about. A lot of wrestler deaths have hit me pretty hard over the years, especially ones like Eddie Guererro, but this one is even more depressing.

UPDATE #2: This just gets worse by the minute…

Several Atlanta-based law enforcement sources have told TMZ Benoit may have strangled his wife on Saturday, then smothered his son in his bed a day later. Investigators refuse to officially comment, pending final confirmation by the coroner on the cause and time of the deaths.

One source told TMZ that Benoit was texting friends during Sunday’s WWE “Vengeance” Pay-Per-View program — possibly watching the show with his son, who may have been alive at the time.

According to sources, Benoit then hanged himself Monday in a weight room inside the family home.

A Rebel Life: Murder by the Rich - Book
Peter Kalafatis

Peter had a rough life growing up. His lousy home life and abusive parents led him to leave home for a life on the streets at age 15. Not too long after that, his younger brother followed him and they both were out on the streets fighting to get by and eventually abusing drugs. Peter eventually grew sick of the streets and wanted a better life for himself, cleaned up his act, got married and was on the road to finally becoming a little bit successful.

A phone call from his family changed all that. They called to inform him that his younger brother had passed away, most likely due to a drug overdose. You see while Peter managed to get himself clean and off the streets, his brother didn’t. This news immediately sent a rush of rage and emotion through Peter and opened up a flood of memories from the past as he tried to deal with the how and why of losing his brother and what he was going to do about it.

This becomes the basis for A Rebel Life: Murder by the Rich. Peter tells the story of his brother’s death and the tidal wave of rage and emotion it opens up in him. It alternates between present day dealing with the events of his death along with flashbacks of his life on the streets. The stories intertwine together perfectly and you can see the how basis of his current rage and hatred towards the rich stemmed back to the life on the streets, discovering punk rock, drug abuse and violence. As the book progresses, it seems like Peter is going to regress back into the person he was out on the streets.

The presentation of these stories is where this book really shines. Peter’s narrative and writing style not only allow the reader to get a vivid picture of what’s happening, but to feel every bit of emotion he did in the stories. In reading this, you can almost hear the anger come off the page in many scenes, just as you feel as sad as he does over his loss. You also can feel a little tired of hearing how the rich are responsible for all the world’s problems including the death of his brother, just like his wife and friends were. At times you may think it’s a cop-out, an easy way to point the blame anywhere else but one’s self, but having not endured the life of the author and his brother, my outlook on life isn’t quite the same despite my similar interest in punk rock.

The theme of punk rock was pretty minimal in the book as it wasn’t the story being told, it merely was the basis of some of his theories as well as scenery for the much bigger story of a man coming to grips with a terrible loss and how it makes him question his decisions and his life in general. It also is a tale of a man coming to terms with the decisions he has yet to make. The book is equal parts heart wrenching and though provoking and occasionally disturbing.

At 188 pages, it wasn’t a very long read, made only shorter by the fact that it is so gripping, it was really hard to put down. If I could find any fault with this book, it would only be that I wish there was more stories told from the past as I was completely fascinated by the ones that were shared in this book. I give this my highest possible recommendation and I’m even pestering my girlfriend to read it and hopefully make her book club do the same!

Related links:

Order the book from amazon.com

A Rebel Life website

This is two R.I.P. posts in as many days. Granted one was for a person and this one is for a magazine.

Punk Planet magazine which some may have thought of as the “grown up version of MRR” has ceased publication. I was a reviewer for the magazine for the last year and a half or so and I was wondering why it had been so long since I received anything in the mail to review for the next issue. Now I know. Basically financial problems, getting screwed by a distributor and the sad state of the music industry are among the reasons cited for their closure. I was a fan of the magazine since about their 5th or 6th issue, years before I would be asked to be a reviewer for the magazine, and I am very sad to see it go. Throughout the years for me the magazine was constantly interesting and often times had some very good (albeit never long enough for my liking) interviews with people from both the old and new punk scenes, artists, etc.

For the complete details, check out the story direct from the horse’s mouth right here. Goodbye Punk Planet magazine, thank you for the years of quality reading and thank you for thinking enough about my writing to have me reviewing records in your magazine.

I used to occasionally write about wrestling on this site when something about one of the shows compelled me to do so. Lately wrestling has been so bad that I stopped writing about it except for the all too often times that a wrestler I enjoyed watching on TV in the past passes away.

Sherri Russell, better known to wrestling fans as “Sensational Sherri Martel” passed away a couple of days ago. The cause of death is unknown as I write this however I read this morning that it may be under suspicious circumstances. Sherri was 49.

Sherri did time in the WWF (now known as WWE) and WCW where she was one of the all time best and also one of the first female managers in wrestling. She played a great heel and helped catapult plenty of stars careers to new heights. She managed such people as Macho Man Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels and Harlem Heat among others. She was good on the mic and wasn’t afraid to get involved in matches and take bumps of her own either. A year ago she was inducted into the WWE hall of fame.

Rest in Peace “Scary Sherri”, I hope you are interfering in matches and distracting referees in the after-life.

The Jesus Lizard - DVD
Music Video Distributors

It was a low period in what I’d refer to as standard punk rock back in the late 1980s/early 199o’s. Most of the bands I spent my teenage years listening to either radically changed their sound, broke up or went metal (and thus they typically sucked). The “new” punk bands were these cookie cutter “youth crew” bands that were of absolutely zero interest to me. I spent those years discovering other genres of music and a sort of new punk rock was born in the guise of noisy indie rock bands. Labels like Sub Pop, Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go were putting out some pretty great records back then and a new scene was born. One of the best bands from that era was born out of the ashes of an old-school punk rock band called Scratch Acid and the band I’m referring to is The Jesus Lizard.

The Jesus Lizard were nearly every bit as unconventional as Scratch Acid but in a different way. No one sounded like them. They put out a handful of really good, powerful, noisy records and toured relentlessly. The shows were often chaotic and full of energy as wild front man, David Yow, flailed about the stage while wailing into his microphone. He’d often sweat, sometimes bleed, and always ended up in the crowd throughout the shows; usually surfing on top of them. They’d seldom play much longer than 45 minutes but they didn’t need to, that was all the time required to deliver the goods. Eventually they put out a major label release, left their home of Touch and Go Records, and sort of fizzled out as their records became less and less inspiring.

This DVD features a live show recorded at the tail end of the era I consider their prime in 1994. The show was filmed in Boston for a cable TV show on two cameras. The band were loud and pretty full on energy and this is a very good document of what it was like to see a typical Jesus Lizard show back then. David Yow howls, growls, wails, and sails through the crowd throughout the show while being backed by a loud and powerful band, showing off their craft as they belt out their unique style of music. The last time I probably saw the band was on this tour, and it was really a nice little trip back through time watching this live footage.

The video is full frame and the picture quality is mostly very good. There are times of graininess during scenes of especially low light but for the time period it seems they used some pretty good equipment. The audio comes in two flavors; stereo and 5.1 surround. The 5.1 track sounds a bit thin, I preferred the stereo track. Overall the audio quality is quite clear, though lacking a bit on the low end. The main feature runs about 45 minutes for the live show and is followed by a 10 minutes or so of interview footage shot at the same show. As a bonus there is a 10 minute live set from CBGB’s recorded by Merle Allin (GG’s brother). That footage is single camera and not nearly as good quality as the main feature but was still pretty neat to see. This makes the total running time of the DVD about 65 minutes.

As a one time large fan of The Jesus Lizard, I was pretty excited to see this DVD come out as a memento from a time long past. It is nice to see that some stuff from this era of independent music is finally starting to get some retrospective documents. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a trend. If you are/were a fan of this band in their prime, it’s probably worth your time to add this to your collection.

Related links:

Order the DVD from amazon.com

MVD website