Time to check out some music on obsolete formats!

The first album I ever heard by NoMeansNo was 0+2=1. It’s an odd blend of punk, jazz, rock, and progressive rock. Somehow, it is much less pretentious than it should be from that description. Yes, that surprises me too. At some point in high school I had quite a collection of the Canadians duo’s material.

As I was going off to college, I shed a good portion of my music collection. I’m not sure what the reasoning was. I tend to purge collections every view years for whatever reason (though this does allow me to get rid of unwise purchases from bands such as Oxymoron). I guess by that point I wasn’t as enthralled with NoMeansNo because only two CD’s and this seven inch stayed in the collection.

I picked this seven inch up in Hollywood. Most likely at Vinyl Fetish…when it was still around. It was a great little shop on Melrose where you could pick up vinyl records and rubber fetish suits. In fact, Hollywood used to have a lot of shops like that. They’ve all disappeared for some reason. Hollywood is poorer for it. This album is NoMeansNo playing a couple covers of other Canadian punk bands. Apparently proceeds of this record went to some prisoner right’s group. Don’t worry though. If that charity isn’t your kind of thing, well, probably no money was donated to it because who the hell ever made money being in a punk band?

Songs:

Oh, Canaduh: This is a Subhumans (Canada) cover (as opposed to a Subhumans (UK) cover). I know nothing about the Canadian version of the Subhumans, but I can’t imagine really needing more than one Subhumans band. Hell, I’m not sure why we need more than one Subhumans album. I have to say though, this ain’t a bad little hardcore song. It complains about Canadian politics, so I’m sure I’m missing the full impact of the song. Do you think Canadian punk bands sing about how much it sucks to get free health care? NoMeansNo plays the song pretty straight…like I said, I haven’t heard the original…but this doesn’t sound like the typical NoMeasNo song, so I’m guessing they’re playing it pretty straight.

New Age: This is a D.O.A. cover. I’ve checked out D.O.A. in the past. They aren’t very good. Very generic sounding hardcore. And this song comes across as pretty generic. The only redeeming part of it is the vocals. Really snotty sounding. From what I remember from D.O.A., they didn’t even have that going for them. This isn’t bad as a one-off song, but I don’t think I’d enjoy an entire album with this stuff (which is probably why I don’t own any D.O.A. albums).

This seven inch isn’t essential. Unless you want a complete collection of NoMeansNo releases, Canadian punk rock, or something just as insane. I enjoy these songs though…as long as I’m listening to them once everything six years or so (I honestly can’t remember the last time I listened to this record). They’re heavy hardcore punk songs that don’t really have anything to do with NoMeasNo expect that they covered them. Take it or leave it; you won’t be missing much.

Ugly cynicism! Over-the-top violence…squared! And did I just get metatextual and compare a book to the Mad Comix Ride? Plus much more in this round of comic book reviews for new releases from January 27, 2010…

• Batman and Robin #7
• Detective Comics #861
• Kick-Ass #8
• Robocop #1
• Wonder Woman #40

Read more…

Time to check out some music on obsolete formats!

In the last edition of the 7-Inch Bin, I pretty much summed up my feelings about Rancid. So I won’t dwell on them too much again. I will say, after I picked up their first two albums, I learned that their first release was this seven inch put out by Lookout! Records. How could that not be awesome? I really liked Rancid. I really dug a lot of the releases from Lookout!. So how could this not destroy the world? Well, I let you know what I think after I check out the songs…

“I’m Not The Only One”: The first thing I noticed is how different this is from Operation Ivy. Not that I expected it to sound just like Operation Ivy, but if I didn’t know about the connection, I wouldn’t guess it. This song sounds a little…i don’t know…clunkier (?) than your typical Rancid song. I can definitely hear the Rancid in this song, but it seems like a younger, unpolished version of the band…which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise because that is exactly what it is. So this isn’t the greatest song but you can see (or hear, I guess) a lot of potential. But this screams three-piece as opposed to the heavier sound they have as a four-piece band.

“Battering Ram”: After the initial intro, which basically gets the same critique as the last song, this music screams Rancid…and the good kind from the earlier part of their career. Fast, heavy, and really, really catchy. I think I’ve talked about how this band has some great “pop” songs (as long as you’re open to pop music with distorted guitars and drunk singers with liberty spikes). I guess by “pop” I’m talking about a looser kind of pop music. There is a definite connection to rock ‘n’ roll and not just awful auto-tuned synth music. I guess I still see pop music as having some connection to early pop like the Beatles or Elvis (though my endorsement of pop music is in no way an endorsement of the Beatles). A lot of punk is just that old rock ‘n’ roll with heavier guitars and uglier vocals, but at the heart is just really good rock ‘n’ roll. This song is really good rock ‘n’ roll.

“The Sentence”: This song reminds me more of something off of Let’s Go, so I guess I can’t blame all my disappointment with that album on Lars. I think this song is a step back from the last but not as clunky as the first. It actually has a pretty cool guitar solo. I don’t usually like that kind of masturbation in my music. But it is a nice rockabilly influenced guitar solo. I can dig it.

“Media Controller”: The chorus in this song is a lot of fun. Pretty much because is has all the strengths of a strong Rancid strong as already described. The rest of the song seems…again…a little unpolished.

“Idle Hands”: I don’t think I really dig any of the intros on this album. I wish they’d cut the fat and get to the main bit of music. Again, this song has a strong chorus but verses that don’t quite work for me. You finally get some Matt Freeman wanking on the bass which I love. I said earlier I don’t usually like solos, but Freeman destroys on bass. It is nice to see some of those skills coming through. Though, I just feel this song is a little weak to end on. Wish it was a stronger song to give a better lasting impression.

Wikipedia states, “This is a very powerful recording of the band in their earliest days as a three-piece.” Which seems kind of opinionated for an encyclopedia…but it is the people’s encyclopedia, so I guess you have to expect that kind of thing. I don’t know if I would call this “powerful.” For this to be powerful for me, it would have to stand on its own. If this was Rancid’s only release, would it be as sought after? No, I don’t think so. It’s good, but more of a sidenote than a statement.

So, sure, they were a little unpolished. But it was still pretty good punk rock. Hell, I recommend this album just for “Battering Ram”; the song is that good. If you’re a big Rancid fan, you should pick this up. Of course, if you’re a big Rancid fan you probably already have this…well…if you’re old and still play records. You younger folks might have to look to get this album illegally (like all your other music) if you want to play it on your iPod; as I don’t believe this has ever been released on CD. I’m not seeing a lot of these on the internet either. One on eBay and one on Amazon. So either no one wants it or no one wants to sell it. I dunno…probably has something to do with kapitalism.

Issue 65: The Best Comic Books of 2009 @

STEAMPUNK WILLY’S MAD COMIX RIDE

This feature attempts to look at songs by bands that are long past dead. Bands that some member of the site participated in. This week’s entry is…

The song was recorded during the final show Smuggling Ken ever played. Not much is known why they stopped. There has been much speculation. Their vocalist went by the name the Unabomber. Most thought it a joke; taking the name of the terrorist who was blowing up college professors. But a month or two after this last show, the Unabomber was actually arrested. Coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not. But it signaled the end of an era. All that was left in the North Los Angeles punk scene were the bands inspired NOFX and Green Day and Lag Wagon. Gone was the one band that believed punk was meant to inspire horror in the souls of society; rather than provide safe, marketable rebellion.

Now Joel—the original guitarist—was gone by this point. He had quit during a previous show—yes, in the middle of the show (of course, the band kept playing but that’s another story for another time). Teen Idol, who had been playing bass, took over on guitar. Teen Idol brought in Crazy Dave to play drums. Batman moved from drums to bass. Because of the drastic change to the line up and the way the songs were played, many historians have compared this phase of the band to Henry Rollins becoming the front man of Black Flag. Did Teen Idol turn Smuggling Ken into a metal band? Well, he did bring in Crazy Dave who was a huge Slayer fan…but, no. However, Smuggling Ken became more structured. Gone was the wild guitar improvisations of Joel, for the much more structured playing of Teen Idol. So maybe Teen Idol was a Bizzaro Rollins (his physique was at least quite the opposite of Hank’s). It’s like if Henry Rollins kicked Greg Ginn out of Black Flag…but Joel was actually really damn good on guitar and Ginn annoys the hell out of everyone. Anyways, there was a shift in the tone of the band.

This performance was recorded during at Nikole’s Teen Dance Club. A tiny club stuck in the middle of suburbia. There would be live bands until ten. Then everyone was kicked out and the DJ’s were brought in for raves starting at eleven. It was owned by an eastern European who always had some reason not to pay the bands and would record bootlegs through the sound system for compilations…again, never paying the band. For these reasons, Smuggling Ken would manage to destroy some piece of the club’s equipment during every show, get banned, then rebook another show under a different band name. Yeah, the Sex Pistols did that to…where do you think they got the idea?

This is the only recording of “Milk and Cheese”. You can hear the direction the band was going in. Much less chaotic, more than one progression per song, more complicated drums. Much more of a hardcore feel than the flippy, goofy songs of the Joel-era Smuggling Ken—which, again, was a really awesome era of the band as long as you didn’t mind being thrown through windows. This was probably only the fourth or fifth time the band ever played the song; and the only time ever performed outside of “practice” (or sitting around talking about each others mom’s while eating Del Taco, if you want to get technical). The lyrics were some rant against consumerism, but mostly the Unabomber just wanted to name a song after the brilliant comic of the same name by Evan Dorkin. Such was the way with Smuggling Ken, always undermining serious politics with comic books.

Space vikings. Snake Eyes. And what do you need to know before you fight a pastry chef? Plus much more in this round of comic book reviews for new releases on January 20, 2010…

• Anna Mercury 2 #3
• Cowboy Ninja Viking #3
• Glamourpuss #11
• Jersey Gods #10
• Joe the Barbarian #1
• Rasl #6

Read more…

Issue 64: Goblin Gender Politics (Review Show) @

STEAMPUNK WILLY’S MAD COMIX RIDE

Time to check out some music on obsolete formats!

Rancid. There ain’t a whole lot to say about them that will add to what’s been said. So I’ll say this…

I knew this girl in high school. She was a Bad Religion freak. Now remember, this is before Bad Religion had signed on to a major label and still had credibility in the punk community. So she loved Bad Religion. I thought they were okay but didn’t play fast enough. I think I’ve mentioned this before; but, if it wasn’t as fast as Minor Threat, then it wasn’t for me. This also took place before the internet and street teams and social networking (or, more accurately, when social networking meant actually meeting people in actual society)…man, I feel old. Anyways, this girl would write to Bad Religion all the time and they would send her copies of the latest releases on…wait for it…cassette tape and flyers to help promote the stuff. One day she lends me this tape by some band named Rancid before it had even been released…it was their first self-titled album.

The flyer bragged a lot about this band having members from Operation Ivy. I hadn’t discovered them yet, but that seemed to get a lot of the punks excited. But I went into this listening experience pretty pure. I wasn’t going to be swayed by this Operation Ivy thing.

So I put the tape on. I’m blown away. It was probably one of the best musical experience since discovering Minor Threat. The music was so balls out and had so much energy. I don’t think Rancid has ever captured that energy again. Sure, some individual songs did, but not an entire album. …And Out Come The Wolves comes close. But I consider that more of the perfect pop album than a perfect punk album.

This particular 7″ was released around the time their second album, Let’s Go. The A side has a couple tracks from the LP (though I think they’re different takes), while the B side has two previous unreleased songs, one being a Blitz cover.

Songs:

“Radio Radio Radio”: Much like Operation Ivy’s “Sound System”, this song is love letter to music in general. This song very much reminds me of the energy the band had during their first album. Just fast, but not hardcore fast, tons of energy, the kind of music you want to jump around and punch walls to. Even at my old cynical age today, I can’t help but feel excited by this song. I talked about Rancid producing some great pop music and I think this would fall into that category too. Sure, it’s heavy, dirty, loud punk rock; but, a lot of good punk rock is just rock ‘n’ roll on louder guitars. This song has such a catchy chorus and so damn sing-a-long-able, I could totally see teenage girls rocking out to this on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“Dope Sick Girl”: This song doesn’t have the crossover appeal that I think “Radio Radio Radio” has. But as a punk song, it continues to have a lot of energy. But it does feel like something more from Let’s Go (which it was). There was just something missing on that album. I know it had more guitar, as Lars Fredriksen came aboard for that album…but more guitar didn’t translate into a better album. Still, not a bad song.

“Just A Feeling”: Now Lars came from the UK Subs. I’ve listened to very little of that band. But I’ve always associated them with street punk or Oi…which are pretty close anyways. A quick glance at Wikipedia, confirms that suspicion. I always felt Lars brought a bit of that Oi/street punk sound to Rancid. Or maybe just brought more of that out of the band. They always had a street punk feel. But this song defiantly has that sound to it. It’s hard to describe unless you’ve wasted years listening to all the different forms of punk rock. And it doesn’t make this song “bad”. And the song still has tons of energy. But it is one of those songs that I listen to and it stands out as the band starting to go in a different direction.

“Someone’s Gonna Die Tonight (Originally by the Blitz)”: And this song is a different direction as it is a cover of a song by a Oi/street punk band. There are the Rancid hallmarks…killer Matt Freeman bass line, slurred, drunken vocals, fast pace. And looking back on the band after listening to a lot of their music, this wouldn’t stick out as anything abnormal, but having only heard the first album at the time, this did sound a bit different.

It’s kind of weird trying to write about this band. They bring up a lot of memories of punk politics, arguing if you could be an underground punk and still like this band…all that crap. I guess all I really want to say is this: 1) If you can’t appreciate a Matt Freeman bass line then you must be Flea, and 2) This is good music. Fast, energetic, and really catchy. Yeah, the band played on Saturday Night Live and all the rumors of Madonna sending them naked pictures of herself and offering millions of dollars to sign onto her record label. But the fact is, that I still had to drive down to Hollywood and go to some hole-in-the-wall record shop to find this 7″. They weren’t that mainstream.

It’s good music. It makes me want to dance. I think it accomplished its purpose. I don’t think it’s essential and a must have though. Two of the songs are available on Let’s Go and “Just A Feeling” is available on their B side CD. That means the only exclusive this 7″ has is a Blitz cover–and I don’t think it is worth it for that. But the 7″ is still available on the internet if you want to track it down. It wouldn’t be the worse thing you could buy.

Cat skateboard. Hand jobs. And is anything better than comics about punk girls racing cars and the Ramones? Plus much more in these review of comics from January 6, 2010…

• The Anchor #4
• Daytripper #2
• DMZ #49
• Fearless Dawn #2
• Punisher MAX #3
• Secret Six #17

Read more…

Issue 63: Previews – January 2010 @

STEAMPUNK WILLY’S MAD COMIX RIDE