Archive for February, 2010

Here’s something I never saw before today, a video made by Placebo Records for the JFA song, “Pipe Truck”! This song, and especially this band, was one of many I’d skate to constantly during the 1980s and my teenage punk rock years There’s lots of great images of the band playing the old Mad Garden in Phoenix which is a place I would have lived at had I been in Phoenix instead of Chicago at the time!

The Village Voice website has a feature on the upcoming Kayo Dot album, Coyote,  on Hydra Head Records today and you can download a song from the album on the site for free. The song is called “Whisper Ineffable” and is the second track on the aforementioned album.

Aside from the free mp3, the article gives a pretty good in-depth preview of what to expect from the full album as well as some information from the band itself on what the song is about. According to the article, the band breaks the golden rule of metal by featuring almost no guitars on their album, which will be very interesting to say the least.

Check out the article and hear it for yourself right here.

Bomp 2 Born in the Garage – Book
Bomp!/UT Publishing

While I knew that Greg Shaw, the man who started Bomp did a fanzine before it became a record label and mail order, I had no idea just how many fanzines he had done even before Who Put the Bomp! The man practically invented the fanzine as he had been doing so many of them either about science fiction or his own neighborhood or music. I’m willing to bet if it wasn’t for him, music fanzines wouldn’t have become as big as they were in the early punk days, and as a former fanzine publisher, I guess I owe a debt of gratitude to Greg Shaw to showing us how it was done.

Bomp 2: Born in the Garage collects the best of Greg’s various fanzines, most of which he would produce on his own mimeograph machine in his home. The book starts out with a history of Greg and his various writing endeavors written by various friends and associates who contributed to the many zines Greg produced and wrote for, many of whom became quite famous writers of rock music for much larger publications, those names include Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, and Richard Meltzer among others. It then reprints the best of his various zines that pre-date the 1970s punk rock explosion. Those zines include Alligator Wine, Liquid Love, Metanoia, and of course Who Put the Bomp! The zines were true fanzines and contained articles about record labels and various bands including very detailed discographies and record listings as well as various articles about record collecting. It is pretty amazing how much of these tiny little zines were preserved over the years.

The book was compiled by Suzy Shaw, who was married to Greg at the time all these zines were produced and would bail him out when he’d get in things way over his head by taking on a number of tasks including carrying on the label and mail order after Greg’s passing, and Mike Stax who put out a wonderful zine of his own called Ugly Things. The music covered in the various zines compiled here include 60’s garage, Surf, British invasion, girl groups, rockabilly, psychedelia and a little bit of punk rock. There’s a ton you can learn from these various articles and listings and it made me start to compile a list of bands covered here in this book that I want to check out.

The book weighs in at 311 pages and since the pages are jam packed with stuff to read, much of it in small type, it will take you quite some time to read it. There’s lots too look at too as the book also contains many pictures. The chapters are broken down by what zine is being reproduced and are presented in chronological order, which made it pretty easy and interesting to see how Greg’s tastes and interests changed over the years and how either accurate or inaccurate his predictions were.

Overall Bomp 2: Born in the Garage is a wonderful compilation of zines from a time long gone and is as educational as it is entertaining. Any fan of the music covered in this book, or just those of fanzines in general looking for some history would do well to pick up this book, which will give you a lot for your money.

Related links:

Order the book from amazon.com

Bomp Records/Mailorder

Ugly Things

South Bay punk pioneers Pennywise have announced that Zoli Teglas of Orange County’s Ignite, is the band’s new and permanent lead singer.

After months of searching, the members of Pennywise announced that Ignite vocalist Zoli Teglas is now officially the new front man. Teglas, a longtime friend and tour mate, recently played a handful of So Cal shows with Pennywise, including the 2009 Smokeout Festival and a sold out Holiday Benefit concert for Amnesty International at Long Beach Arena.

Teglas will join Pennywise on its upcoming European tour which kicks off this April. That tour will be preceded by a few warm up West Coast dates that start on March 17 in San Diego, CA. Pennywise is currently at work on a new record, its first featuring the new lineup.

After the sudden departure of former singer Jim Lindberg, a member of Pennywise for 19 years, guitarist Fletcher Dragge called Teglas a “natural choice” to take over vocal duties for the band.

Bassist Randy Bradbury explains, “What started out as a temporary position was just too good to put an end to. Zoli brings to the table a tremendous vocal ability, creativity, and a die hard work ethic. There is a bond that makes this change feel like it was simply meant to be, and considering the recent unfortunate events, having Zoli join the band is a well needed shot of positive energy.”

Teglas was excited to take the stage with his friends, noting, “I’m stoked to be singing with Pennywise. I’m a huge fan of the band and am super grateful to share the stage with my long time friends Fletcher, Byron and Randy.”

Calling it quits was never in the cards for the remaining members of Pennywise. “We love this, we love going on the road,” Dragge explained to AP back in August ’09. “There’s nothing more important to me than being on stage in front of our fans and having them sing our lyrics back at us and feel the energy. This has become so much bigger than just us as a band. It’s become a family and a brotherhood of people that I feel depend on us. I’m still here to continue to deliver the message as are Byron and Randy. Our motto is to follow your dreams and pursue them. Don’t waste time because if you’re wasting time on something you’re not into, then you’re not living. We’re going to go out there and have fun doing what we love until it stops being fun.

Pennywise is one of the most significant bands to emerge from Southern California’s second wave of punk rock. Formed in 1988 in Hermosa Beach, California, Pennywise has released nine full-length studio albums; one live album; two extended plays; and one DVD. Their most recent studio effort, Reason to Believe, was released to over 500,000 fans for free through a limited offering from MySpace Records. The critically acclaimed album was also sold physically and digitally the world over. “The Western World,” the first single from this watershed album, quickly became the most successful single of the band’s storied career.

Founded when punk rock couldn’t be less popular and hair bands were in fashion, Pennywise quickly developed a style entirely its own–a tsunami of California hardcore, melodic surf punk and optimistic anthems that went against the seek-and-destroy ethos of its era.

“We’ve done things our own way,” Dragge points out, “and we’ve never taken no for answer. We’ve been a punk band for 20 years, and we’ve traveled the world and we’ve had a lot of people tell us what we could and couldn’t do. ‘Tell me what we can’t do, and I’ll try twice as hard to do it.’ That’s the one thing this band has taught me: ‘If you want it bad enough, you can have it.”

Legendary producer, Iain Burgess (far right in this photo with members of Blatant Dissent) passed away today after losing his fight to pancreatic cancer. Iain Burgess was probably the man most responsible for the “Chicago sound” of 1980s punk rock.

Iain recorded all the big bands in this city back in the day including Big Black, Naked Raygun and countless others. Iain recorded pretty much every Chicago based record that fueled my teenage skateboarding years when I was in high school and this is a tragic loss to the world of music.  Condolences go out to his family, friends, and loved ones, he will truly be missed

Sunday night Reggie’s played host to a hardcore extravaganza which was headlined by the long awaited return of DRI! This was also a marathon show and a late one featuring five bands, which meant it was going to be a long night.

Vicious Attack

Vicious Attack

Vicious Attack

Vicious Attack, a local band, opened the show as a steady stream of people were filing into the club. They were a speedy thrash band with some metal tinged guitars. Their songs were somewhat similar and they played one speed, full. There was some occasional guitar noodling going on too which added a little bit of spice to the songs. The band had a few fans in the crowd that were moshing and slamming into unsuspecting people in their general area. The band played about 30 minutes.

Chicago Thrash Ensemble

Chicago Thrash Ensemble

Chicago Thrash Ensemble

Chicago Thrash Ensemble

Chicago Thrash Ensemble

Another local band, Chicago Thrash Ensemble played second. They are made up of people from previous bands like Authority Abuse, Hewhocorrupts, and others. As you could probably guess from their name, they were a thrash band. The singer had a sort of high pitched scream voice and he paced around the stage the entire time while shrieking his vocals. The band were pretty tight too and they played their short blasts admirably and were a pretty enjoyable band.

The Muzzler

The Muzzler

The Muzzler were third and are another Chicago area band. They played metal hardcore. They had more tempo changes and a lower end than the previous two bands and were quite enjoyable. The singer had quite a yell in him as well. The club was really getting full by this point and it was looking like the show may be a sell out.

Diamond Plate

Diamond Plate

Keeping with a trend, the fourth band was also from Chicago and that band was Diamond Plate. This three piece band played really heavy thrash metal. They seemed to have really studied their old Metallica and Slayer albums because there was a very similar sound to their early albums. In fact one might have thought that these guys came out of a time machine from the late 1980s. They played a really tight and powerful set but that singer/bass player has no business playing without a shirt on! The crowd went absolutely nuts during their set too. If these guys stick with it and lift less riffs from some older bands they could really be onto something big.

DRI

DRI

After over a six year hiatus due to one of the members having a bout of cancer, DRI made their long awaited return to the Windy City. DRI is a hardcore institution and their first record, the Dirty Rotten EP is a hardcore masterpiece and went on to become one of the blueprints of 1980s hardcore that hundreds of bands that formed since have followed.

DRI

DRI

At this point the club was totally packed and people were excited to see the band play. There was a buzz about the entire room and you could feel the excitement in the air. As the band was walking onto the stage, some people even started a pit before the band played! Once the band started into their first song, the entire floor went nuts and were pushing, shoving, moshing, jumping, and any number of other crazy things all while singing along to the chorus of “Who Am I”.

DRI

DRI

They played a ton of songs from the first two records (ie: the best ones!) and some newer material too and the crowd never got tired of going crazy and knocking down everyone in their path. Nearly the entire floor was a sea of bodies bouncing around like pinballs which lead many people to flee for safety. People were singing along and there was even a couple attempts at stage diving. The band sounded great and if they had any rust from not playing in so long they must have worked it off before arriving here because they were spot-on! These hardcore legends may be up there in age as they are about to embark on their 30th anniversary as a band, but age has been kind to them as they can still deliver the goods.

Some additional photos from the show can be seen here.